Scotland November/December 2022

Over the Sea to Skye

a luxury stay in Scottishthe Isles

Bonnie Prince Charlie

ANDREW MORAY

down into

hidden history

Sally Co ey

Easton

Martine

White

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Editor’s letter

The past couple of months have been a time of much sadness across Scotland, following the death of The Queen at her beloved Balmoral, and so we pay tribute to her in Scotland Says Goodbye (p28) by tracing her nal journey through the country she so loved.

It’s also been a time of much change, and we now have a new King of Scots as well as a new Duke of Rothesay. You can read all about the shift in roles in Royal Titles (p56), where our expert in hereditary matters, Bruce Durie, explains the origin of many of the Scottish titles.

Before the pivotal news, I managed to escape my desk and take a cruise in the Inner Hebrides, where I got up close to lots of Scottish wildlife and visited some of the places most impacted by the Highland Clearances, to report back on tales of resilience and newly harmonious communities. You can read about my coastal tour in Over the Sea to Skye (p16) and enter our competition (p27) for your chance to win a stay at one of Skye’s cosiest hotels.

Of course, when you think of crossing the sea to Skye, you can’t help but think of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and this issue, we take a deep dive into the island from which he made his escape, Benbecula, in Between the Uists (p66), to discover what life was like there for the MacDonalds of Clanranald and why today it’s somewhere you’d probably more like to escape to than away from.

I hope you enjoy the issue, feel free to get in contact to let me know your thoughts, or sign up to our newsletter (see overleaf) for even more Scotland stories.

41

The city of Edinburgh is layered with stories, from tales of medieval

about

74

Shopping

Travels with Tom

travel guide

ancient

The unsung warrior

We tell the story of

the Scottish Wars of

of the lesser-known

Hotels with history

to Edinburgh’s rich past and

story with

Royal titles

in

Moray

of

of these

62 Tibet on White Esk

We visit the Buddhist monastery of Kagyu Samye

in the southwest of Scotland

Between the Uists

We discover the tiny island of Benbecula, which played

crucial role in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s famous escape

Catching the light

We profile Scotland’s most celebrated living

artist, John Lowrie Morrison

Dates for your diary

This season’s best events celebrating Scottish culture and history, both in Scotland and overseas

The story behind...

Take a teatime break with us

look at how this affects royal titles in

Following the accession of King Charles III,

Andrew Liddle’s new book explores the extraordinary rivalry between Churchill and Edwin Scrymgeour

more essential stories, covering Scottish history, travel, heritage and culture straight to your inbox. To receive Scotland’s latest news and exclusive letters from the Editor, simply visit scotlandmag.com/ fromtheeditor and enter your email address.

CLAN COURIER

A royal relic returns to its roots and a Skye restaurant achieves top foodie status

THE EDINBURGH WOMAN WHO FOUND A KING

It’s a story that seems straight out of a Hollywood script and so it’s surprising that it’s taken 10 years to come to screen, but finally Edinburgh-based writer-turned-historic-sleuth Philippa Langley MBE is getting the spotlight she deserves.

The Lost King, which premièred at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, tells the story of how Langley felt compelled to right the wrongs that had been directed at King Richard III, whose reputation was damaged by Tudor propaganda, and set about finding the remains of the king.

In 1999 Langley founded The Boar and Saltire, the Scottish branch of the Richard III Society, and from here her research into the whereabouts of the king’s remains bore fruit, eventually leading to her discovery of Richard III under a car park in Leicester in 2012.

The film is out in the UK now with a US date yet to be announced at the time of press. pathe.co.uk/at-home/the-lost-king

ST MUNGO REOPENS

One of Glasgow’s most cherished museums has reopened after an extended period of closure, despite concerns it would close permanently.

Thanks to a petition by Interfaith Glasgow, St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, named after Glasgow’s patron saint, which stands in the medieval heart of Glasgow, has not only reopened but has extended its opening hours.

St Mungo is the only public museum in the UK dedicated to religious life and art and among its treasured pieces is a bronze sculpture of the Hindu God, Shiva, and a beautiful piece of stained-glass depicting Moses, Elijah, David, and Enoch. It also boasts Britain’s first Zen garden. glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/ st-mungo-museum-of-religious-life-and-art

[MUSEUMS]

THE STONE COMES HOME

Stolen by the English during the reign of King Edward I and finally returned to the Scots in 1996, the Stone of Destiny is being brought back to its rightful home of Perth in 2024 after a period of 700 years.

Originally kept in Scone Abbey within the grounds of Scone Palace, just outside Perth, since 1996 the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings were crowned for centuries, has been on display in Edinburgh Castle. Meanwhile, Scone Palace has had to make do with a replica outside the chapel on Moot Hill (pictured), where coronations once took place.

Construction is now well underway on the £26.5m restoration of Perth City Hall Museum where the Stone will be available to view from 2024 before visitors can see its historic home at Scone Palace.

Before that, the Stone will be briefly returned to Westminster Abbey in London when it will be used in the coronation of King Charles III.

Look out for our special feature on the Stone of Destiny, Scone Palace, and the Perth City Hall Museum in the next issue of Scotland. www.culturepk.org.uk/museums-galleries/ city-hall-project; scone-palace.co.uk

THE SKYE’S NO LIMIT

Edinbane Lodge, the reputable restaurant with rooms on the Isle of Skye, has been awarded Four AA Rosettes – the only restaurant on Skye to receive the accolade and one of just six restaurants to be awarded Four AA Rosettes across Scotland.

Run by chef patron Calum Montgomery, whose family bought the run-down hunting lodge in 2017 and set about restoring it, Edinbane has built up an excellent reputation for its food offering and rooms over the past few years. Calum sources produce from a community of family and friends, who, like him, are committed to making the most of the island’s crofts, seas, and artisan production.

Upon receiving the award, Calum said: “It means so much to bring this award to my native island home for the first time – and of course, to even be mentioned in the same category as some of the UK’s most renowned restaurants is such an honour.”

edinbanelodge.com

[TRANSPORT]

TICKET TO RIDE

Getting around Scotland without a car has just got a little easier thanks to a new timetable of affordable daily coach routes connecting Scottish cities.

FlixBus will now provide daily connections to and from Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, and Aberdeen through its partnership with Scotland’s largest independent bus company, McGill’s.

Tickets, which cost as little as £5.99 for a 3.5-hour journey, can be booked through the FlixBus app or the company’s website. flixbus.co.uk

[TOURISM]

NEVER MISS NESSIE

New webcams located along the shores of Loch Ness mean that Nessie hunters can now keep an eye out for Nessie 365 days of the year, wherever they are.

Cameras are now located at five locations around the famous loch, including the Craigdarroch Hotel in Foyers and Drovers Lodge near Drumnadrochit.

Michael Golding, CEO at Visit Inverness Loch Ness, said: “We are delighted to be able to provide live footage of the beautiful Loch Ness every day of the year. For people all over the world to watch Loch Ness through the changing seasons and get a glimpse of

the beautiful scenery and abundant wildlife is very special. Of course, the webcams will also give Nessie fans another way of spotting our elusive and most popular resident!”

Tourism providers are also hoping the webcams will inspire people to visit the area for other reasons, too.

Chris Taylor, VisitScotland Regional Leadership Director, said: “By having the opportunity to see Loch Ness from so many different viewpoints, more potential visitors will be inspired to travel to this beautiful part of the Highlands.”

FIVE OF THE BEST… PLACES TO CELEBRATE ROBERT BURNS

1 The Globe Inn and Dumfries

Dumfries is a must for any Burns fan – it’s where the national bard spent his later years and where his mausoleum can be visited. Burns was known to like a drink and The Globe Inn, just off Dumfries’ high street, was his favourite watering hole. Now run by the owners of nearby Annandale Distillery, the fully refurbished pub offers sevencourse tasting menus around the very table that Burns once sat down to dine at. If you’d like to extend your visit, stay the night at the town’s Cairndale Hotel & Leisure Club, which offers cosy rooms, plus a serene spa. distillerytours.scot/ venues/the-globe-bar; cairndalehotel.co.uk

2

Ellisland Museum & Farm

Built in 1788 by Robert Burns for his young wife Jean Armour and their family, at this “modest mansion” Robert Burns wrote prolifically, including two of his most famous works: Auld Lang Syne and Tam O’ Shanter. Burns called the property “the poet’s choice” of the three farms offered to him by his landlord Patrick Miller. You can step inside his study, which has a view of the River Nith, or follow in his footsteps with a walk along some of the farm’s woodland paths. ellislandfarm.co.uk

3 Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway

For insight into Burns’ earlier life, you can’t miss Alloway, the Ayrshire village where he was born. This dual attraction, encompasses the humble cottage where he spent his early years, and an excellent museum a short walk away along Poet’s Path, which houses over 5,000 Burns artefacts. It’s the best way to get a sense of who the writer was and what drove him. Afterwards, visit the places that inspired Tam O’ Shanter – the Alloway Auld Kirk (where you can see his father’s headstone), and the Brig o’ Doon. nts.org.uk/visit/places/robertburns-birthplace-museum

4 The Falls of Bruar, Perthshire

When Burns visited the Falls of Bruar, near Pitlochry, in 1787 he was enamoured by the natural beauty of the scene but felt it could be enhanced with the planting of some trees. He wrote a poem to the Duke of Atholl to that effect: The Humble Petition of Bruar Water, and though it took some time for the Duke to acquiesce, after Burns’ death, he eventually planted trees around the falls and laid out bridges and pathways in his memory. houseofbruar.com/the-falls-of-bruar

[HOTELS]

INVERLOCHY EXPANDS

Inverlochy Castle, a stunning Highlands country house hotel, has announced ambitious renovation plans, which will see it add an extra eight bedrooms, bringing its full capacity to 35 bedrooms.

The five-star 19th-century castle in the foothills of Ben Nevis, which stands within a 500-acre estate, is renovating its listed stables and walled garden.

5

Burns in Edinburgh Burns lived in the capital, off the Royal Mile, for a while, and frequented the city’s many howffs. The huge neo-Greco-style Burns Monument, at the foot of Calton Hill, looks out over Arthur’s seat, and pays homage to his time here. It originally contained a marble statue of Burns, which is now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Other Burns items can be found in The Writer’s Museum. nationalgalleries.org/visit/scottish-nationalportrait-gallery; edinburghmuseums.org.uk/ venue/writers-museum

Norbert Lieder, managing director of Inverlochy Castle Management International, said: “The Scottish Highlands’ exceptional beauty and landscapes means there is extremely high demand for five-star accommodation within the region. The expansion designs pay homage to this historic landscape.”

The new rooms will be ready from April 2023 and the expansion follows the 2022 launch of the hotel’s new interactive dining experience, Seasgair by Michel Roux Jr.

From the Gaelic for ‘snug, comfortable, and warm’, Seasgair sees dishes using ‘hyperlocal’ ingredients served at the table as they would have been during 19th-century cook Mary Shaw’s time. inverlochycastlehotel.com

Each issue, our editor gives a glimpse into the events and places that she is hoping to visit. This issue, as Burns Night approaches, she’s thinking of all things Rabbie Burns…

EDITOR’S DIARY

Private chauffeured

of

North Scottish Highlands

Notes from the Isles

Words by KATE FRANCIS

ABOVE:

and Cronie,

faithful Border Terrier

TOP RIGHT:

Pictish hill fort

Craig Phadrig

Afriend of my daughter Mary recently organised a pilgrimage from Craig Phadraig, above Inverness, to Iona, and Mary decided to join the expedition.

The route retraced the steps of St Columba and his 12 disciples (in the opposite direction) who came to Inverness from the Isle of Iona around AD565 to try and convert the Pictish King Bridei and his followers to Christianity.

As they neared their destination, Columba and his disciples had to ford the River Ness where it ows into Loch Ness. According to Columba’s biographer, St Adamnan, Nessie emerged from the water with a mighty roar and attacked one of the monks as he swam across the river. Columba raised his hand, made the sign of the cross and ordered the monster to go no further...it meekly obeyed him and slunk back into the water.

Craig Phadrig is the hill on which King Bridei had his castle, and is presumably where Columba began his converting. All that’s left of the vitri ed fort today is a stony hollow covered in grass and abundant with beautiful bluebells and wild owers, approached by a path that zigzags up through trees.

The pilgrims assembled here on a Sunday morning, and I couldn’t resist skipping church to see them off.

It was a diverse group of at least three generations, from teenage to mid 70s, and I needn’t have felt guilty about not

going to church. We all sang a hymn; there was a bible reading, some prayers, and a brief and moving sermon from the leader. Then a ‘Druid’ in a robe marched round anointing everyone with holy water, splashed with a birch twig dunked into a dog’s drinking bowl.

The group then set off through the drizzle, serenaded by two kilted pipers: a van carrying their camping regalia to each pre-planned stop. Some rode Highland ponies and one woman claimed to have walked barefoot. Their numbers uctuated from about 20 to 15.

The rst ve days along the Great Glen went smoothly, I am told, with campsite camaraderie and wayside inns, but when they reached Glen Kinglass, disaster struck. All through one night everybody, except lucky Mary and one other, was violently and continually sick, struck down by norovirus. It was as if a medieval plague had swept through the camp, but after a day lying listlessly around the eld, they nally made it to Oban, from where they sailed to Mull and, two days later, made the crossing to Iona, where they paid homage to St Columba and swam in a turquoise sea.

I have just returned from our Outer Hebridean retreat, where I joined my youngest daughter Henrietta and her family, with some of their friends. We were 12 in all, and we ate like royalty: feast after delicious feast, none of them planned, provided, or cooked by me. I didn’t lift a nger domestically, except to take the kitchen waste down to the shore every morning and night, to tip the bucket into the water for the gulls. They always saw me coming and swooped

A pilgrimage meets an unexpected hurdle, a family trip stirs memories, and a very welcome guest comes to stay

down to grab what they could of our tasty leftovers, which frustrated Cronie who doesn’t swim voluntarily.

We had perfect Mediterranean weather throughout and the days were spent climbing local hills, swimming in the Atlantic, picnicking on sandy beaches, and collecting shells for my granddaughter, who plans to use them to decorate a mirror frame.

There are such amazing shells to be gleaned once you start looking for them in the sand and we became obsessed with who could find the most cowries. We went over to Eriskay on a cockle-hunting errand one day, with kitchen forks to rake them out of the sand. We got enough between us for a delicious first course, and then I spotted a local lass who had a bucket full.

I asked her to show us the best way of finding them and she produced a potato masher which she cleverly used as her rake and directed us further up the beach from where we’d been looking.

Two of our party were keen fishermen, so we were well provided for. One day, a cousin took a group off to the Monach Isles in his RIB (rigid inflatable boat), where they caught mackerel and pollock, but only a few, so I bored them all with stories of the good old days, when we used to go out in our boat and catch several fish boxes full.

Each person would have a line with eight hooks and a weight, which they would lower into the sea, leave for a short time, and then pull up to find a fish on at least four, if not all, of the hooks. We caught far more than we could use

each day, so the children would go round the glen in the evening distributing the surplus. There were certain places, marked by gannets diving into the sea, where you could be sure of catching mackerel.

My brother-in-law David came to stay last month with a friend, and Mary and I arranged a programme of treats for them. This was David’s home when he was still at school, when Douglas – ‘the Bro’ – had gone off to join the Cameron Highlanders, so he has many happy memories here.

We decided to take them to the Plodda Falls, a mesmerising waterfall in a spectacular canyon at the head of Strathglass. To get to the top, you go down a fairly easy path through woods to a viewing platform like a diving board, on which you can stand directly above the cascade. Far the best view, however, entails a very steep path down rocky steps to the bottom. Foolishly, I advised David to stay at the platform, so naturally he insisted on going the full distance. “Of course I shall go on down. The Bro would have.”

He got there – and back...triumphant! We cheered. The Bro, four years his senior, would have been 90 today. It’s Sunday so, after Mass, I shall take a fresh posy to his grave. S

All that’s left of the fort is a stony hollow covered in grass and wildflowers, approached by a path that zigzags up through trees

GOT MAIL

QUEEN OF HEARTS

Sitting here at my computer, still somewhat shocked by the death of Queen Elizabeth, several thoughts immediately spring to mind.

Firstly, as I read my latest edition of Scotland, I recall with considerable fondness our visit to your beautiful country in 2019 and to now see once again, via the media, many of the Edinburgh landmarks we were fortunate to visit, including the Palace of Holyroodhouse, St Giles’ Cathedral, and many other parts of the old city, including Edinburgh Castle (where we were lucky to be at the time of the 21-gun salute for the Duke of Edinburgh’s birthday), it makes me realise how quickly things can change within the space of a mere three years.

TAKEN BACK TO TIGHNABRUAICH

When I first saw the article on Tighnabruaich (Issue 123, September 2022), my memory flew back 70 years ago.

I was a member of the First Glasgow Company of the Boys’ Brigade, the original company.

Every Glasgow Fair we left town from the Broomielaw on board the paddle steamer Waverley to our destination, Tighnabruaich.

When we arrived, we formed up and started a march with the bugle band playing our own song Portavadie by Millhouse, Argyll. We lived in bell tents, bathed in a cold, cold stream, and had a mess hall with a cook to feed us. We had a large rowboat to fish in Loch Fyne. The cook prepared our catch. Each tent competed against each other in everything. A highlight was a journey in a fishing trawler across Loch Fyne to Tarbert.

I am 86 years old, but my memory of our trip down the water every year still is fresh. God bless the Boys’ Brigade who gave many young boys the chance to see and experience one of the most beautiful places in Scotland.

Bill Roebuck, Oregon, Ohio

Queen. She tirelessly endeavoured

Here, so very far away in Melbourne, Australia, it is comforting to be reminded of the very strong link still existing between the United Kingdom and Australia, largely in part to the devoted lifelong e orts of our late Queen. She tirelessly endeavoured throughout her very long reign to constantly renew her links with a great many of her subjects, including those of us in the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth.

Her Majesty will be sorely missed and, I very much doubt that we will ever see her like again.

CLAN COLQUHOUN CHECKING IN

As an American Colquhoun (my ancestors spelled it ‘Calhoon’) I was delighted to read the article about the clan in the home country (On the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks, Issue 122, July 2022). While I’ve never been to Glasgow, I did visit Edinburgh while serving in the United States Navy. While there I bought myself a clan scarf and necktie. Thanks again for the enjoyable read.

Roger Calhoon, Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, USA

Jenny Collins, Melbourne, Australia

sea Skye Over the to

Sally Coffey takes a private cruise in the waters around Skye to discover secret anchorages, undisturbed wildlife, and to hear tales of long ago

THIS PHOTO: View from Skye’s Old Man of Storr towards Raasay INSET: Red Moon

Our skippers spot it rst: a dark lump on the horizon. There’s a scramble as a second pair of binoculars is found and shared around, each of us careful not to take our eyes off the distant point while we wait our turn. Silence as we stand on the ship’s foredeck staring determinedly at the sea, hoping it wasn’t an illusion. And then we see it – the sleek arc of a minke whale’s back and a hint of its dorsal n.

It’s a humbling experience that elicits gasps from my three friends and I – even our skippers, Mary and Scott, seem awe struck.

Gradually, Scott steers the boat a little further out in the Inner Sound, before cutting the engine and letting us bob on the water, waiting to see if the whale breaks the surface again, and then it does, but this time much closer. We are in the company of one of the giants of the sea, which are often spotted off the coast of Skye and its neighbouring Inner Hebridean isles, and over the next half an hour or more, we watch as it crosses the Sound, trying to anticipate where it will come up for air next.

This sighting, off the coast of the Isle of Raasay, is the culmination of an incredible four-day cruise in the waters around Skye, which has brought us closer to more wildlife than I could have hoped for – otters, seals, sea birds (including a solitary puf n), and porpoises. These are not the sightings you’re likely to get on an afternoon’s cruise, but

LEFT TO RIGHT:

©

MICHAEL A HILL

The minke whale spotted by Sally and friends; the pretty Highlands village of Plockton

spend several days at sea, I’m learning, and wildlife will be oblivious of your presence, as you sit at anchor in their natural habitat.

Our cruise had begun a few days earlier as we boarded the small but luxurious boat Red Moon from the main pontoon in Plockton, a tranquil and pretty Highlands village that sits on a nger of the Scottish mainland’s northwest coastline overlooking Loch Carron.

Couple Mary and Scott, who own the boat, had welcomed us on board, shown us into our cosy cabins – a double forward and two singles to port and starboard – before running through a safety brie ng and overview of our itinerary over a cooling drink.

Mary and Scott live on the boat year-round – in winter the boat is moored in Dunstaffnage Marina in Argyll – and from April to October they run private cruises for up to four passengers. Though they are both experienced skippers, on their cruises Scott does the bulk of helming, while Mary hosts and prepares delicious meals from morning through night as “it just works better when we do it that way”.

Built in 1944 and launched the following year, Red Moon is a wooden boat with teak decks and port holes that was once used as an auxiliary boat with a stint on the Clyde. It has also been a shing boat in Orkney and the Shetland Islands.

Since then, she’s been sumptuously kitted out, with very comfortable beds, an excellent power shower and lots of modern Scottish touches, including woollen tartan throws, Highland Soap Company toiletries, and an expertly curated library of books to sit and leaf through when you are underway.

Doing an intimate cruise like this means you get to know your crew well, and so we soon discover that Mary and Scott had their rst date on a night of a red moon, hence the boat’s name.

By the time we anchor on our rst night, deep into Loch Hourn, in a pool so far in that Scott must steer through a narrow channel, we’ve already spotted an otter, several seals and two groups of porpoises.

At the helm, New Zealand-born Scott is constantly on the lookout for wildlife. I ask him if he ever feels complacent about the wildlife here, “not at all, I actively seek it out,” he tells me. “It makes the landscape seem more wild to me [when I see it].”

Loch Hourn is a sea loch that sits between Glenelg and the remote Knoydart peninsula. At the loch’s head, at Kinloch Hourn, there’s a small café, B&B, and parking, but from there it’s a long walk to reach anywhere else resembling civilisation on Knoydart.

However, civilisation is far from our minds. The fjord-like loch is

By the time we anchor on our first night, we’ve already spotted an otter, several seals and two groups of porpoises

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: On a private cruise, guests can reach places other tourists don’t; Loch Hourn; wild otters are often spotted around these waters; a cosy single cabin

Seeing the shortbread-tin castle of Eilean Donan from the water is like seeing it for the first time

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: The Skye Bridge crosses Loch Alsh; Mary serves traditional Scottish dishes like cranachan; a refreshing morning swim; Eilean Donan; Mary and Scott, owners of Red Moon

peaceful, anked by green hills either side, whose peaks disappear behind the clouds at intervals, and the water is so clear we can see hundreds of moon jelly sh just below the surface, which Mary and Scott assure us are not poisonous.

We toast our rst night at anchor with pink champagne and prawn-toast canapés in the wheelhouse (we soon come to learn that an aperitif is a daily ritual aboard Red Moon) before going through to the salon for a dinner of sea trout with sweet potatoes, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes, drizzled with a coconut sauce, followed by that most decadent of Scottish desserts: cranachan.

Mary is a skilled chef and uses the freshest ingredients she can source. As we’d passed by Kyle of Lochalsh earlier that day, she had pointed to a hut in a huddle of buildings and said, “that’s where I get all my sh”. Now, over dinner, she tells us that her bread all comes from Manuela’s Wee Bakery, also in Kyle, while all her meat comes from a butcher in Gairloch.

The following morning after an uninterrupted night’s sleep, I go for a swim with one of my friends before breakfast.

It feels special swimming in our own deserted loch – the water is silken, and the mosaic of greens and blues of this natural landscape are equally cleansing. After a few minutes, we haul ourselves out of the water, wrap ourselves in the big soft towels provided and have a sip of

coffee before taking it in turns to have hot showers.

After breakfast we jump in the small tender and Scott motors us over to the shore where we walk down a path that was once the original road to Skye. The path is patchy and boggy in places and at one point we lose it entirely and end up taking a lengthy detour up and over a headland. But it gives us a sense of the vastness of this landscape, considered one of the last true wildernesses in Scotland.

It’s certainly a place that sings of nature and life, with huge rocks covered in moss, damp ground carpeted with soft grasses and wild owers, and trees and ferns dripping in moisture, with the silence broken only by the occasional splash of a diving otter or a playful seal.

Today the Knoydart Peninsula is looked after by the Knoydart Foundation, a charity that effectively puts the land back in the hands of the community. It’s not always been this democratic – during the Highland Clearances of the 19th century The Sillery ship transported hundreds of crofters from here to Canada – life for the locals who refused to leave was made unbearable. In 1948 the ‘Seven Men of Knoydart’ attempted to claim back some of the land as their own, but their plans were unsuccessful. It wasn’t until many years later, in 1999, that the lands of Knoydart were nally set free.

We arrive back on board to a lunch of hot and cold smoked salmon with salad and seeded brown bread, prepared by Mary, which we heartily enjoy before embarking to our next port of call, Totaig Bay, where we have an enviable view of Eilean Donan castle.

Eilean Donan is the shortbread tin view of Scotland, and yet I’ve only ever seen it from the relatively busy A87 road before, which does dampen the romance a little.

From the water, it’s like seeing it for the rst time, and though the present building is a Victorian reconstruction of the original medieval

The water is silken, and the mosaic of greens and blues of this natural landscape are equally cleansing

ship cruising

building, you can see what wannabe invaders would have been confronted with – castle walls along which canons could be aimed and red, and lookout points that would make you feel closely monitored.

When the sun sets and the castle is illuminated, the scene becomes more magical than impenetrable, and the castle appears dwarfed by the huge hill behind it.

The next morning, before bidding farewell to Eilean Donan, Scott brings the boat alongside it. It feels thrilling to be this close and to see it from a perspective that few others get to see.

From Eilean Donan we sail through Kyle Rhea and under the Skye Bridge, before coming in to anchor on the west side of the Isle of Raasay.

It’s been a few years since I’ve visited Raasay, and thankfully, enough time has passed that the whisky the distillery had just put into casks then is ready to taste.

Raasay Distillery has transformed the fortunes of this small isle, which had been suffering the dreaded ‘brain drain’ so regularly complained of in rural Scotland, until the distillery opened in 2017, providing much-needed employment for islanders and bolstering the tourism trade.

The views of the Red Cuillin from the distillery are tremendous. The distillery has smart rooms to stay in, and a restaurant in the planning, but day-trippers can take a tour, or have a drink at the bar.

OPPOSITE: Our editor and friends aboard Red Moon

BELOW:

Rainy’s regime had a devastating e ect on Raasay

For the best views on Raasay, however, I suggest climbing Temptation Hill – a steep but short-enough climb, with views across the Sound of Raasay to Skye, as well as down over Raasay’s North Bay beach. From here you also get an aerial view of Raasay

Today only the haunting stone outlines of the homes of Hallaig, cleared between 1852 and 1854, remain

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ABOVE: Calum’s Road on Raasay, hand-built by Calum Macleod over a period of 10 years

House, once home to the notorious landowner George Rainy, a merciless man who evicted many of the island’s tenant farmers and forced inhumane measures on those who remained in less hospitable areas.

Today Raasay House is a hostel/café/activity centre. The community walled garden behind is evidence that at least today the people of Raasay have more autonomy over their lives.

On this, the final night of our cruise, Scott takes us to an anchorage on the east of the island known as Waterfall Bay. Though, as expected, there is a waterfall, this area is also known as Hallaig Bay, after the village that once stood above it.

Hallaig was one of the victims of Rainy’s regime, cleared between 1852 and 1854. Today only the stone outlines of former homes remain.

The village became immortalised 100 years later in the poem Hallaig by Sorley Maclean, which laments the lost people of the village:

“They are still in Hallaig MacLeans and MacLeods

All who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim:

The dead have been seen alive.”

The emptiness of the landscape here adds to the poignancy of those lost communities and yet it’s a place that speaks of acts of resilience too, from the Raasay Raiders who landed nearby from the Isle of Rona to claim back the land that was rightfully theirs, to the work of Calum Macleod, whose hand-built road starts just up and beyond the waterfall.

Calum’s Road, as it is respectfully known, connects the north part of Raasay to the rest of the island.

When Calum’s repeated requests to the council to build a road went

unheard, Calum took matters into his own hands, and built one himself, over a period of 10 years.

That night, as we sit on the aft deck, sharing tales and watching the sunset, with the hills of Applecross across the water bathed in a milky haze, I can’t help but think of Calum and what his homeland meant to him and the legacy he has left behind.

You won’t see run-of-the mill sights on a Red Moon cruise, and you may not even set foot on Skye itself, (we didn’t), but this doesn’t mean you will miss the drama of the island.

On a cruise like this, you simply see everything from a different vantage point – the sea – much as those displaced people would have, whether they were leaving their homeland or arriving back to claim or revisit the land of their ancestors.

Whether you are looking for wildlife, an appreciation of the landscape, or to learn more about the history of these isles, a cruise like this will give you a more authentic viewpoint than any land tour or larger cruise ship could ever hope to do. S

To find out more about Red Moon cruises,

As we sit on the aft deck sharing tales, I can’t help but think of Calum and what his homeland meant to him

Win a luxury escape to the Isle of Skye

Your chance to stay in an award-winning Highlands-style hotel

Think of the most amazing parts of Scotland, and, of course, your mind will turn to Skye.

The dramatic setting for many blockbuster films and TV programmes, Skye is regularly listed among the world’s best-loved islands.

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Our winner will enjoy two nights’ dinner, bed and breakfast for two in a Deluxe room at Duisdale – a prize worth £1,000.

Part of the multi award-winning Sonas Collection of hotels from former Scottish Hotelier of the Year Anne Gracie Gunn, Duisdale House overlooks the Atlantic waters of the Sound of Sleat towards the Knoydart wilderness.

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SCOTLAND SAYS GOODBYE

We follow the Queen’s final journey through Scotland, from her beloved Balmoral to Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral

They came in their tens of thousands, residents of and visitors to Edinburgh, who lined the Royal Mile and crammed into the streets around it to pay their respects to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who had died at Balmoral Castle just days before.

Each year, from mid-July to October, Her Majesty made Balmoral, her great, great grandmother’s “dear paradise in the Highlands”, her home – staying at first at Craigowan Lodge on the estate, before moving into the main castle when it closed to the public in early August.

And so, it may just have been a coincidence that it was at Balmoral that the Queen spent her final few weeks, but she no doubt took great comfort from the familiar surroundings of her 50,000-acre Aberdeenshire holiday estate in her final days and hours, as she was said to feel so at home here that she effectively left her crown at the gates.

On 6 September, in a break from protocol, the Queen both accepted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official resignation, and invited the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, to form a government at Balmoral (a ceremonial duty usually carried out at Buckingham Palace).

This gave some indication of Her Majesty’s declining

health, and so when an unprecedented announcement from the Palace on the afternoon of 8 September said that doctors were concerned about the Queen and “have recommended she remain under medical supervision,” it became clear that the end was near.

Over the next few hours, the eyes of the world turned to Balmoral, and viewers waited with bated breath for the news none of us wanted to hear.

The mood of the nation – and across the world – turned sombre as reports came through that members of the Royal Family were flying to Scotland to be by the Queen’s side. After landing in Aberdeen, Prince William drove Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, to Balmoral.

The eyes of the world turned to Balmoral, and viewers waited with bated breath for the news none of us wanted to hear

We now know that the Queen’s eldest son, (then) Prince Charles, and her only daughter, Princess Anne, were already at her bedside.

During the afternoon, news readers began dressing in black, amid growing concern that an announcement would soon be made, and then at 6.30pm it came, with an official announcement from the Palace that said: “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”

Prince Harry was still on his way to Balmoral when the announcement was made.

PREVIOUS PAGE:

The Queen’s coffin procession from Holyroodhouse

THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Balmoral after the death of Her Majesty; postbox topper; flowers are laid at Balmoral

Shortly afterwards, mourners began leaving flowers at the gates of Balmoral and by the time the Queen’s cortège made its way through the nearby village of Ballater on the morning of 11 September, a knitted topper of the Queen had appeared on the Royal Deeside village’s postbox.

The Queen was known to many in Ballater; indeed, locals considered her as more than just royalty but as a

neighbour, and have memories of having seen her in the hills around the area or glimpsing the new King and other members of the Royal Family in the local shops and cafés.

As the Queen left Balmoral for the last time, her coffin was draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, and was accompanied by several police motorcycles. It passed by Crathie Kirk, the humble granite church where the Queen attended Sunday services while staying at Balmoral, before travelling through the village of Ballater, where many of the Queen’s neighbours, as well as visitors from across the world, stood in revered silence as the cortège passed through.

Lord Lieutenant Sandy Manson told the Press and Journal, “She was so engaged in this community, she so loved this community, and we loved her.”

The Queen was known to many in Ballater; indeed, locals considered her as more than just royalty, but as a neighbour

From Ballater, the cortège passed through Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee, and across the Queensferry Crossing, which the Queen had opened in 2017, some 53 years after she had opened the adjacent Forth Road Bridge.

On arrival in Edinburgh, the coffin was placed in the Throne Room of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the monarch’s official residence in Scotland.

In June 2022, Her Majesty The Queen had made her first appearance since the Jubilee Celebrations at the Palace of Holyroodhouse during Royal Week, in which she took part in the pageantry of the Ceremony of the Keys.

On Monday 12 September, King Charles took part in the ceremony for the first time on the palace forecourt. During the ceremony, the monarch is handed the keys of the city of

Edinburgh by the Lord Provost in a move that welcomes them to their “ancient and hereditary kingdom of Scotland”.

The monarch then hands the keys back, entrusting them to the city’s elected officials.

Shortly after the ceremony, the Queen’s coffin was taken by procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse up the medieval cobbles of the Royal Mile to St Giles’ Cathedral – a journey of just 0.7 miles.

During the procession, the coffin was once again draped in the Royal Standard, flanked by the Bearer Party from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and escorted by members of the Royal Company of Archers – the monarch’s body guard in Scotland.

The coffin was followed by the Queen’s four children, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward, with guns fired every minute from Edinburgh Castle.

On arrival at St Giles,’ the High Kirk of Edinburgh and a church where the Queen is known to have worshipped, as well as participated in Order of the Thistle ceremonies, a final round of shots was fired, and the Queen’s coffin was then carried inside.

Once inside, the 16th-century Crown of Scotland – the

The coffin was followed by the Queen’s four children, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward, with guns fired every minute

centrepiece of the Honours of Scotland (Scotland’s Crown Jewels), made for the Queen’s ancestor King James V, was placed on top of the coffin.

The Service of Thanksgiving was sung by the Choir of St Giles’ Cathedral and conducted by Mr Michael Harris, the Master of Music, with the organ played by Jordan English, Assistant Organist of St Giles’ Cathedral.

The service was a historic moment, but by no means the only historic event to take place at the cathedral, as St Giles’ minister, the Reverend Calum MacLeod, pointed out.

“Here at St Giles,” the Reverend said, “John Knox confronted Mary, Queen of Scots, King James VI argued about liturgy, Oliver Cromwell preached, and our late Queen

received the Honours of Scotland, on her accession to the throne 70 years ago.”

Just like that happier occasion in 1953, when the Queen and Prince Philip paraded through the streets of Edinburgh to the cathedral, on this day, the Royal Mile was lined with well-wishers, though this time the mood was more solemn.

Shortly after the service, the King and the Queen Consort were escorted into the chamber of the Scottish Parliament building, which the Queen opened 23 years ago, by the Royal Company of Archers.

The MSPs stood for a two-minute silence before each party leader spoke in support of a motion of condolence, beginning with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said: “Our nation is in mourning for a Queen whose loss we have not yet begun to come to terms with.

“We are deeply honoured by the presence today of His Majesty King Charles III and the Queen Consort. Your Majesty, we stand ready to support you as you continue your

ABOVE: The procession at Holyroodhouse OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The cortège on the Queensferry Crossing; The Throne Room; Crathie Kirk

©

ROYAL COLLECTION/HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II/

CRAWFORD/ISTOCK

“The Queen, like so many generations of our family before her, found in the hills of this land and in the hearts of its people a haven and a home”

own life of service and as you build on the extraordinary legacy of your beloved mother, our Queen. Queen Elizabeth, Queen of Scots, we are grateful for her life. May she now rest in peace.”

King Charles addressed the MSPs with a speech about his mother, saying: “Through all the years of her reign, the Queen, like so many generations of our family before her, found in the hills of this land and in the hearts of its people a haven and a home.”

The King also paraphrased Robert Burns saying: “My dear mother was the friend of man, the friend of truth, the friend of age and guide of youth. Few hearts like hers, with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed.”

It is now strongly rumoured that King Charles plans to

open Balmoral Castle up further to members of the public as a memorial to his mother and her love of Scotland.

The Queen lay in state in St Giles’ Cathedral with the Royal Company of Archers keeping vigil from the evening of Monday 12 September until the afternoon of Tuesday 13 September, with members of the public able to walk past the coffin to pay their respects.

On 13 September, Princess Anne escorted her mother’s coffin as it made its final journey from Scotland, travelling by hearse to Edinburgh Airport, and from there on to London.

As the coffin was brought out of St Giles’ Cathedral, gathered onlookers could hear a lone piper playing Flowers of the Forest from within the cathedral precinct.

A fitting farewell to a Queen who had indeed taken Scotland into her heart.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: Mourners line the Royal Mile; pallbearers carry the coffin; the Crown of Scotland was placed on top of the coffin

As the coffin was brought out of St Giles’, gathered onlookers could hear a lone piper playing Flowers of the Forest from within the cathedral

THIS PHOTO:

Bally comes from a fishing family and has been fishing for almost 30 years

Words and photos by JEREMY FLINT

A GOOD CATCH

Meet Bally Philp, a man who catches prawns in some of the UK’s most majestic waters using some of the most sustainable techniques available

Historically, there has been a long legacy of commercial fishing in Scotland where it has developed from a subsistence activity – one undertaken to feed the fisher and their immediate community by the earliest settlers in Scotland, around 7000 BC – to a major food source and export commodity.

During the 19th century, fishing for herring, white fish and fin fish thrived and at the peak of the Herring Boom in 1907, 2,500,000 barrels of fish (227,000 tonnes) were caught and exported to Europe and beyond. Now these stocks have become commercially extinct and the two principal fishing sectors that remain in Scotland are prawn and scallop fishing.

Today, creel fishing, which involves laying dozens of baited pots on the seabed, known as creels, has become one of the most popular fishing methods practised around Scotland. The word creel refers to ‘a device used to catch lobsters and other crustaceans.’ They are made of netting woven over a frame designed to catch shellfish, including crabs, langoustine, and prawns, when they climb inside the ‘eye’ of a creel. Creel fishing in Scotland mostly takes place inshore (along waters close to the coastline) and is a static fishing method compared to mobile fishing, which involves towed gear, used by trawlers and dredgers.

Today, around 85 per cent of the Scottish inshore fishing fleet are creel boats. These boats are small – usually less than 10 metres long – which means that engine size and weather dictate how far they can go from shore, and how often they can fish.

Bally Philp is a creel fisherman who skippers a 12-metre boat and fishes for prawns in the Inner Sound, a straight of water separating the Inner Hebridean islands of Skye, Raasay and South Rona from the Applecross peninsula on the Scottish mainland.

Bally’s love of fishing started when he fished during school holidays and at weekends. “When I left school aged 15, I naturally found myself working on the boats and spent my

first summer working out of Mallaig on a small suction dredger fishing for razor fish and palourdes, which is a shellfish similar to a cockle.”

Determined to do something other than fishing, Bally tried several different jobs, but eventually found himself back on the boats.

He has been skipper on various prawn creel boats for the best part of 30 years, and comes from a family of fishermen.

“These days I fish local and only target prawns, also known as langoustine or Norway lobster. I work in the Inner Sound of Skye, an area mostly closed to trawl and dredge sectors, and fish exclusively with creel.”

Usually, one or two people work a creel boat, including the owner, and Bally’s crew includes fisherman Haydn Mackenzie. They begin the process of locating the baited creels that have been left on the seabed for 24 to 48 hours.

A buoy marks the start of a roped line on which 50-60 creels are strung. Bally pulls the pots in at great speed using a hauler machine before emptying the catch; up to three or four langoustines can be hauled per cage. The prawns must be at least 20cm in length. Fresh bait is then added to the creels, which are stacked at the stern of the boat. Once the marker at the other end of the rope is hauled aboard, Bally drops the creels at the same place or steers the boat to another fishing ground to release them.

Bally and Haydn cover eight fleets during the day, and nearly 500 creels between them before returning to shore with their prized captures. The live shellfish Bally catches are the benchmark of fresh premium value seafood. In a good year Bally will fish for 200 days a year, although it’s more

Bally and Haydn cover eight fleets during the day, and nearly 500 creels between them before returning to shore with their prized captures

CLOCKWISE,

FROM TOP LEFT:

Bally and his crewmate Haydn Mackenzie on board the creel boat; Bally fishes exclusively for prawns; one of the best bits of the job for Bally is being his own boss; the majority of the Scottish inshore fishing industry’s income is made from prawns and scallops; Bally’s boat on the Inner Sound; any undersize animals, or eggbearing females are returned to the sea alive, and undamaged

typically 150 days per year due to adverse weather.

The bulk of the Scottish inshore fishing industry relies on prawns and scallops for most of its income. Prawns are targeted by creel boats and trawl boats and scallops are targeted by diving and dredging.

Bally says: “Fishing in the Inner Sound is unique in that there are both permanent and seasonal closures to dredging and trawling that allow us to have higher percentages of creeling and diving than found anywhere else in Scotland.

“Almost all the boats in the area where I fish are prawn creel boats. There is one scallop dredger and one trawler as well as several visiting scallop dive boats.

“Although the fishing industry almost everywhere around Scotland is shrinking, because our area has so few dredgers and trawlers, we are finding our local fishing community is being maintained.”

Bally gets prices often four or five times that of the equivalent trawl-caught prawns and can sustain employment at a fraction of the catch required by a trawler employing the same number of men.

“Not only are creels low impact they are also high value and [provide] high employment. As most of the local catch is caught by creel boats, and creel boats require less catch to support any job, we have an unusually high amount of fishermen in a modest size area,” says Bally. Ultimately, creel fishing is crucial to the survival of fragile, rural communities.

Although full of challenges, like working around bad weather and only making a living when he can fish, Bally loves the beautiful scenery and wildlife. He says: “The best bit of my job is getting to practise and contribute to

sustainable fisheries management and evolving the industry to ensure it’s fit for the 21st century.”

Bally works closely with the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation (SCFF) – helping to raise the profile of creel fishermen, promoting recovery of the marine environment, and ensuring that the remaining inshore fishing is sustainable – and deputy chairs his local fishing association.

According to the SCFF, creel fishing is a “profitable, species-selective and environmentally sustainable form of fishing with very little by-catch.”

The SCFF says that target species are brought to the surface alive and undamaged, which means that egg-bearing ‘berried’ females and undersized animals can be returned to the sea, resulting in more sustainable fish stocks.

“The carbon footprint (in particular fuel consumption) is minimal compared to other methods of fishing as the majority of boats are small and fish relatively close to shore,” it says.

Bally agrees that it is one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable fishing techniques available, he says: “I find the low impact on the seabed and high selectivity of creels make it the most appealing type of inshore fishing”.

With good management of the creel fisheries, limited damage to the marine ecosystem and the return of underdeveloped prawns to the sea encouraging fish stocks, Scotland’s seas could well be fished sustainably for generations to come. S

To find out more about creel fishing, go to

LOCHCARRON OF SCOTLAND

With a story stretching back to 1892, Lochcarron of Scotland is the world’s leading manufacturer of tartan, and a label any Scottish person would be proud to have in their wardrobe. Lochcarron’s skilled craftspeople handmake its tartan and tweed in the company’s weaving textile mill in Selkirk, in the Scottish Borders. Woven using natural, renewable and biodegradable fibres, Lochcarron products are built to last a lifetime. Whether you’re looking for a traditional Highland dress, a beautifully soft tartan lambswool scarf, or a wonderfully warm tartan jacket for the winter, with over 500 authentic Scottish tartans on offer, Lochcarron will take you from kilt to catwalk. lochcarron.co.uk

FROM SCOTLAND, WITH LOVE

Take a little piece of Scotland home with you with one of these trusted Scottish brands

THE HIGHLAND SOAP COMPANY

Hebridean seaweed, Scottish bog myrtle, Highland lavender or wild Scottish raspberry; just a few of the natural and delicious scents on offer from family-run maker of soap and skincare, The Highland Soap Company. Handmade in its Highland workshop, which is nestled between 13th-century Old Inverlochy Castle and the River Lochy, and overlooking Ben Nevis’s north face, the products are inspired by the brand’s beautiful Highlands setting. Handmade using a centuriesold process, with many ingredients wild-harvested, each of the products are natural, organic and sustainable, and good for your skin. Choose from soaps, bath and body products, skincare, or home fragrances, or take home a selection of all, in one of the ready-made sets or gift boxes. highlandsoaps.com

SHORTBREAD HOUSE OF EDINBURGH

Coming from a Scottish family with a strong baking heritage, Shortbread House of Edinburgh is a baking dynasty, producing some of the finest, butteriest and crumbliest shortbread in all of Scotland. With parents and children alike in on the baking business, the company produces and sells its award-winning biscuits in the heart of historic Edinburgh, and now ships them all over the world. Whether you’re after a traditional and unbeatable Scottish shortbread round, or something a little different, such as the intriguing Earl Grey tea shortbread collection, or the Christmas shortbread, we’re sure you’ll be back for more time and time again. shortbreadhouse.co.uk; or for US readers, thescottishgrocer.com

ARRAN SENSE OF SCOTLAND

Celebrating the untouched, natural ingredients that can be found on the Isle of Arran, combining to produce vibrant, evocative scents that are uniquely Scottish, and, uniquely Arran, the ARRAN Sense of Scotland bath and body, hand care, skincare, fragrance and home products capture the true sense of wild and remote Scotland. The company’s aim is to help the world reconnect with nature, and its fresh, natural scents and ingredients will transport you to their island home, including seaweed and sage, Glen Iorsa lavender, and its signature fragrance After the Rain, which captures the scent of a summer garden after a rain shower on the island. The candles and reed diffusers, in particular, are the perfect way to bring Arran home with you. arran.com

TOP SCOTTISH SHOPS

Here are three of the best places to shop on your next visit to Scotland.

Multrees Walk

The definition of Scottish luxury retail, Multrees Walk, just off St Andrew Square in Edinburgh, is home to some of the finest designer brands, as well as Scotland’s only Harvey Nichols, and is where you can buy Shortbread House of Edinburgh. multreeswalk.co.uk

St James Quarter

St James Quarter is Edinburgh’s newest shopping area, and a haven for any shopaholic. Stop into its John Lewis to stock up on whisky and Scottish treats. stjamesquarter.com/shop

THE BALVENIE

As the only whisky distillery in Scotland that still grows and malts its own barley, that uses traditional floor maltings and keeps both a coppersmith and a team of coopers on site, Balvenie whisky can claim to be the most hand-crafted of single malts in all of Scotland. The distillery’s whiskymaking process is dedicated to maintaining the Five Rare Crafts (home-grown barley, a malting floor, copper stills, cooperage, and a Malt Master) and their skilled craftsmen, which includes Malt Master David C Stewart MBE, have a dedicated understanding of their materials. Their commitment to craftsmanship brings skill and passion to the whisky, which can be tasted in every golden drop. thebalvenie.com

House of Bruar

Situated in rural Perthshire, House of Bruar is an essential pilgrimage for anyone with an interest in Scottish country fashion and goods. Shop clothing, gifts, food and, of course, whisky. houseofbruar.com

BRINGING SCOTTISH FOOD TO YOU

US readers can have a taste of Scotland delivered to their door with Scottish Gourmet USA

CLOCKWISE,

FROM TOP RIGHT:

Scottish Gourmet USA is the largest seller of haggis in America; a clootie dumpling is a traditional Scottish pudding; Scottish Gourmet USA also sells hearty Scottish treats like pies and sausage rolls; company founder Anne Robinson

Scotland is more than haggis. It’s more than bagpipes and shortbread, too. And, as we all know, Scotland is more than single malt whisky, the Loch Ness Monster, Robert Burns, Highland coos and thistles. Many of us come by different paths to love Scotland, its history, its landscape, and its people, as well as its most well-known symbols. That love affair can be sparked by family, movies or books, or travel.

Anne Robinson started Scottish Gourmet USA in 2005 because, while being courted by a Scotsman from Inverness (whom she later married), she developed a fondness for Scottish heather honey. As a businesswoman with a background in international commerce, she realised that many American consumers, like herself, hungered for a taste of the exquisite foods from Scotland, but couldn’t find them easily in the US.

What started as a mail-order enterprise offering Scottish Breakfast tea from Edinburgh, and heather honey from Struan Apiaries in the Highlands, has evolved into a dynamic catalogue and e-commerce business, offering over 800 items, and serving customers in all 50 US states.

Sensing a huge demand for the national dish of Scotland in America, Scottish Gourmet USA began producing haggis in the US in 2009. Today, the North Carolina-based company is the largest seller of haggis in America, and along with haggis,

customers can also enjoy black pudding, white pudding, meat pies, Scottish-style bacon, bangers, sausage rolls, oatcakes, bridies and kippers. Scottish Gourmet USA also sells clan-related mugs and tea towels, as well as cookbooks, and guides to tracing your ancestry.

As the holidays approach, families and friends gather to spend festive evenings together, enjoying fine food and company. Scottish Gourmet USA relishes the chance to connect people with delicious fare from Scotland, like the smoked salmon, cheesy cheddar bites, whisky-infused fudge, clootie dumplings and more. “Our customers frequently suggest new products or their childhood favourites, and they have helped shape the company into what we offer today,” says Robinson. “In fact, haggis was such a frequent request early on, we had to at least try and make one in America.”

December is a big month, with thousands of packages of holiday gifts and Christmas hampers shipped out from the Scottish Gourmet shop. But January is the busiest month of the year for the company. January means Burns Night Suppers, which means haggis. Burns Night, on 25 January, is a chance to celebrate Scotland, Scottishness, and the unique stamp that Scottish people have left on the world.

As people gather to eat haggis, recite poetry, and raise a toast to the memory of Robert Burns, Scottish Gourmet USA takes pride in helping to make these events really feel like home and heritage for so many. S

TRAVELS WITH TOM

ABOVE:

Tom runs a cultural tour company in Scotland

RIGHT:

Kilmartin Glen is home to hundreds of pre-historic monuments

Kilmartin Glen, in mid Argyll, is home to an extraordinary profusion of prehistoric monuments laced with important sites from the more recent past. What links these places? And how did the people who built them view the earlier structures?

The glen – fringed by beautiful mature woodland and rocky hills with glimpses of the sea all around – is as full of mystery as it is of the remains of the ancient past, which makes a visit a fascinating exercise in historical puzzle solving.

Although it’s on the main road between Oban and Campbeltown, the glen felt quiet when I visited in peak-season August.

All along it are hundreds of rock carvings, burial cairns, stone circles and standing stones. The Kilmartin Museum (currently being refurbished) publishes excellent guides with walks between them. Many of the best ones are also easy to access by car.

What struck me was the huge gulf in time between the various prehistoric structures. The rock art – sequences of rings, cups, and swirls – is about 5,000 years old. Standing stones were erected up to 2,000 years later, with the various cairns (some complete with eerie burial chambers) and stone circles remodelled for different uses throughout.

This suggests that the people who made each cycle of stonework cannot have known what their predecessors’ intentions were. In some cases, they reused the work of their forebears.

At Nether Largie, rock art seems to have been cut from the bedrock and propped up as standing stones.

There is something reminiscent of Ancient Egypt here in the vastness of time encompassing the glen’s use as a centre of political and religious power right into the historic era. With no inscriptions, though, there is less real evidence to go on. Many have speculated that the cairns and stones are aligned with the stars or the moon and sun. The inner cynic might emerge as you step around the stones – could you not align these with pretty much any celestial presence or notch in the hillside? Are the obsessions of today transcribed onto the unknowable minds of the ancients?

We do not even understand the symbols on the much later medieval funerary sculptures nearby. One of them looks like a pair of garden secateurs. The glory of Scotland’s ‘Valley of the Kings’ is that we can speculate with nearly as much knowledge as the experts.

Carnasserie Castle – a Renaissance bishop’s fortified house at the head of the glen – affords a beautiful view to the south. Then, Kilmartin Church juts out on its terrace overlooking the cairns and standing stones. It is host to a wonderful collection of medieval decorated crosses and grave slabs.

As if on steppingstones into the past I ended the day at Dark Age Dunadd, looking back up the glen from its rocky crag. The fort was the first capital of the Scots after they crossed over from Ireland and is famed for the carved inauguration stone near the summit, with its Pictish-style boar symbol, Ogham inscription and evocative footprint. Supposedly it was filled with the soil of the king’s subjects so that he trod on the land of all his people at his coronation.

Dunadd is mentioned in the early chronicles, but it was only in the last century that archaeologists found gold, expensive dyes, and pottery. But despite its impressive location, there are few physical remains. The arrival of the Vikings thrust asunder the Scottish and Irish halves of the Gaelic world. Religious and political power fled long ago from the coasts into what is now central Scotland.

We are left with clues in stone carvings, from the neolithic through to early modern times. Is there a link between them all? Were people drawn towards Kilmartin by a recurring sense of sanctity? I left inspired if not fully enlightened.

S

Tom Miers, Finlaggan Pursuivant, acts as Herald to the Chiefs of Clan Donald, and runs tour company Clans & Castles (clansandcastles.scot)

Many have speculated that the cairns and stones are aligned with the stars

Our travel guide visits the ancient Gaelic region of Kilmartin, home to one of the most significant collections of neolithic and Bronze Age finds in the country

THE UNSUNG WARRIOR

Words by JOHN MILES

On 11 September 1297, the Scottish army of William Wallace and Andrew Moray, his co-commander, delivered a resounding victory over the English at Stirling Bridge. Many people around the world are familiar with the name William Wallace – the awardwinning movie Braveheart was even about him – but, curiously, the just as valiant and equally as important Andrew Moray is much less well known.

William Wallace was a member of the lesser nobility, but scarcely little is known of his family history. There are also disagreements about where exactly Wallace was born. Much more is known about Andrew Moray’s background.

Andrew Moray, ‘The Younger of Petty’ was born in the latter half of the 13th century. Andrew’s father was the Justiciar of Scotia, a title referred to the most senior legal office in the Feudal Kingdom of Scotland.

Moray The Younger’s mother was the daughter of John Comyn. Clan Comyn was one of the most powerful families in 13th-century Scotland. To say that Andrew Moray’s family was well connected would be putting it mildly. It is very probable that, like other members of his social class,

young Moray embarked on early training for knighthood. The result of this training was that Andrew Moray had a solid grasp of military tactics to call upon. That military knowledge would be used in the defining moment of Andrew Moray’s life, the First War of Scottish Independence.

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a response to the relentlessness of English kings in attempting to establish their mandate over Scotland, something the Scots fought hard to resist. The genesis of these wars was the lack of a definitive ruler of Scotland. The previous Scottish King, Alexander III, had died after being thrown from his horse in March 1286, and all his children had predeceased him.

After the king’s death, several Scottish nobles vied for the vacant crown. In these uncertain times, Scotland’s nobility turned for guidance to their nearest neighbour, King Edward I of England. Edward was widely respected and had a good relationship with the recently deceased King Alexander. The power

LEFT TO RIGHT: The Scots fought against King Edward I to keep English rule out of Scotland; Andrew Moray

We tell the story of one of the lesser-known heroes of the Scottish Wars of Independence

and influence that Edward possessed allowed him to assess the merits of the various claimants to the Scottish Crown.

Edward’s willingness to fill this role came at a price. The contenders had to recognise him as Overlord of Scotland. After much deliberation, John Balliol was awarded the Crown. The newly crowned King John duly recognised King Edward I as his feudal superior and, thereafter, King Edward’s interference became a regular part of Scottish legal and political affairs.

The Scottish political community soon grew weary of his involvement, and by late 1295 King John had renounced his loyalty to Edward. This defiance infuriated King Edward, making hostilities between the kingdoms inescapable.

John Balliol was stripped of his power and King Edward’s army defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296. After this, government bureaucracy in Scotland was filled with English appointees. English tax collectors imposed heavy tariffs to fill King Edward’s coffers. He also sought to conscript Scots, including the nobility, into English armies. This plan caused widespread concern – factors that contributed to growing agitation against English rule.

In early 1297 there were violent outbreaks across the country against the English occupiers and their Scottish allies. By May 1297, Andrew Moray was leading the rebellion against the English in northeast Scotland, while Wallace was operating to the south. They now joined forces to oppose the English.

By late summer 1297, King Edward had lost control of Scotland. In September the English stirred into action against Moray and Wallace. The English mustered an army and marched into central Scotland. Moray and Wallace

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT:

The Battle of Stirling Bridge; Edward I became known as the ‘Hammer of the Scots’; Stirling Bridge

responded by marching their combined army to Stirling. They deployed their men to the north of the River Forth close to the longstanding bridge at Stirling Castle.

The English sent the vanguard of their army across the narrow bridge.

Moray and Wallace wisely struck when only part of it had crossed over and this isolated unit was destroyed.

The bulk of the English Army, which had still not crossed, panicked as it became clear that they had been outmaneuvered.

It’s estimated that the English lost one hundred knights and five thousand infantrymen at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

The victorious Scottish army suffered far fewer casualties, but of those who were injured or killed, was Andrew Moray, who was fatally wounded. It is believed that Moray died of his injuries around November 1297. Months later Moray’s widow bore him a son, also named Andrew. This Andrew would play a major role in defeating the continuing attempts of English King Edward III to conquer Scotland in the 1330s.

This all begs the question of why Moray isn’t as well remembered as Wallace. This can be answered by psychology. Wallace’s execution was well documented and truly grisly; once someone learns about it, they can’t help but be drawn to his story. While Moray was mortally wounded in battle, he died of those wounds significantly later. If Andrew Moray had died on the battlefield at Stirling, history may have remembered him as well as it does his comrade, Wallace. S The sources referenced for this article include Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge: Exploring Scotland’s Two Greatest Battles by Murray Cook and Patrick Fraser Tytler’s History of Scotland. Third Edition.

That military knowledge would be used in the defining moment of Andrew Moray’s life, the First War of Scottish Independence

Words by HENRIETTA EASTON

HOTELS WITHhistory

Experience Edinburgh’s rich and storied past rst-hand with a stay in one of these historic hotels

The city of Edinburgh is layered with stories, from tales of medieval kings and queens to rumours concerning Regency writers and Victorian visionaries, and a stay in one of the city’s many historic hotels will get you closer to some of these stories.

We’ve handpicked some of the city’s most iconic hotels with history, whose buildings are as much a part of the city and its past as Edinburgh Castle and the Scott Monument. With distinctive Scottish architecture, high-pro le past guests and occupants, as well as convenient locations for exploring the capital, these hotels both celebrate the city’s rich past, and provide the modern amenities and trimmings that we have all come to expect from a luxury hotel.

THE BALMORAL

Greeting you as soon as you walk up the steps at Edinburgh Waverley train station, The Balmoral is one of Edinburgh’s most recognisable landmarks.

When it opened in 1902, the North British Station Hotel, as it was known then, was described as a “free rendering of the Renaissance period, linking the old Scottish architecture of the Old Town with the rather severe classical architecture of the New.”

Upon opening, the hotel’s clocktower was set two minutes early so that people wouldn’t miss their trains, and this quirk is kept today – the only day that the clock runs on time is on the 31 December for the city’s Hogmanay celebrations.

As Edinburgh’s most fashionable place to stay, over the years the hotel has played host to many a lm star, princess, and politician, including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul McCartney, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and British Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Harold Wilson. In 2007, J.K Rowling nished writing the nal Harry Potter instalment in the hotel, and there is now a suite named after her.

Still one of the city’s chicest hotspots, The Balmoral was named the 2022-23 AA Hotel of The Year Scotland, at the AA Hospitality Awards. It’s unsurprising, as its interiors are supremely elegant, and its palette pays homage to the colours of the Scottish landscape – woodland greens, sky blues and mountain greys. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy a wee dram of the hotel’s own whisky as you enjoy sublime views of Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town. roccofortehotels.com/hotels-and-resorts/the-balmoral-hotel

THIS IMAGE: The Balmoral clocktower is one of the most recognisable landmarks on Edinburgh’s skyline

RIGHT: A Castle View Suite in The Balmoral

© HOTEL PHOTOGRAPHY SRL

THE GEORGE

The epitome of New Town chic, combined with an authentic sense of Edinburgh’s Enlightenment history, InterContinental Edinburgh The George is a collection of fine Georgian townhouses constructed at the end of the 18th century. In 1840, no.19, which now forms the hotel’s main entrance, was remodelled as the headquarters of the Caledonian Insurance Company by leading Victorian Scottish architect David Bryce and the property has been one of Edinburgh’s grandest hotels since 1881.

Located on fashionable George Street, the elegant townhouses were often frequented by literary figures such as Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott – popular 19th-century novelist Susan Ferrier, Scotland’s answer to Jane Austen, even lived in one of the houses.

The impressively grand interiors, which include chandeliers, polished marble floors and original Corinthian columns and ceilings, are well-balanced by contemporary bedrooms, which enjoy incredible views of the city. Spend your evening at The Printing Press bar and restaurant, whose name is a nod to the hotel’s literary connections, and enjoy a modern take on traditional Scottish dishes, all washed down with a ‘Rabbie Burns’ cocktail, of course. edinburgh.intercontinental.com

WALDORF ASTORIA EDINBURGH – THE CALEDONIAN

One of the finest examples of a grand British railway hotel, the Caledonian (or the Caley to those in the know) was once part of the Caledonian Railway’s Edinburgh Princes Street railway station – you can still see the original station clock in the hotel.

The hotel’s red sandstone façade has been an icon of Princes Street since 1903, exemplifying Edinburgh’s Edwardian heritage and cementing its place as one of the city’s most significant landmarks.

With some of the best views of Edinburgh Castle in the whole city, and just steps from Princes Street Gardens, the hotel combines opulent modern luxury with heritage in the most elegant way.

Original Louis XV-style interiors, which include decorative ceilings and cornices, blend beautifully with contemporary, colourful furnishings and refreshing modern touches – such as the Astoria Spa with its indoor pool.

There are two excellent on-site restaurants to choose from – Dean Banks at The Pompadour serves up sustainable produce with a focus on Scottish seafood in a fine-dining setting, while for something more relaxed, Grazing by Mark Greenaway incorporates locally sourced ingredients with unique concept dishes from an award-winning chef. hilton.com/en/hotels/ ednchwa-waldorf-astoria-edinburgh-the-caledonian

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: The grand Georgian facade of The George; The Waldorf boasts incredible views of

Edinburgh Castle; the penny-covered bar at the Inn on the Mile; the Alexander Graham Bell suite at The Waldorf

THE INN ON THE MILE

Slap bang in the middle of Edinburgh’s iconic Royal Mile, the Old Town thoroughfare that has been the processional route for kings and queens for the last 500 years, The Inn on the Mile is rich in history.

The hotel is housed in the former British Linen Company Bank building, built by prominent lawyer and political figure Andrew Fletcher in the mid-18th century – a time of much turmoil in Scotland as the Jacobites took their final stand.

Exemplifying the neo-classical style that earned Edinburgh its title of ‘The Athens of the North’ in the 18th century, the building is notable for its carefully crafted Classical features, including its giant Doric portico, which stands out magnificently among the medieval buildings of the Royal Mile. The hotel celebrates its banking history with an intriguing bar front inside the cosy onsite pub, covered with thousands of old pennies.

The hotel’s bedrooms were built during the bank’s heyday in 1923 and, though now furnished in a contemporary and minimalist fashion, they still display original features such as

the cornices whose intricate detailing give some indication of the enormous wealth that once poured through the bank’s grand doors. theinnonthemile.co.uk

© COREY STOVIN/DANIEL MCAVOY

Words by BRUCE DURIE

ROYAL TITLES

LEFT TO RIGHT:

King Charles III held a vigil with his siblings around the coffin of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh; King Charles III’s father, Prince Philip, passed his title of Duke of Edinburgh onto his son on his death in 2021

We have a new king. On the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022 and his accession to the throne, HRH Prince Charles became King Charles III. In Scotland, he is King of Scots, the title inherited from James VI of Scots when he also became James I of England in 1603.

That nomenclature itself is instructive. Charles may be king of the nation of England and Wales, but in Scotland, he is monarch to the people, not the place. As King, Charles could have chosen any regnal name. His grandfather, known to history as George VI, was named Albert at birth after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort, and was known as Bertie to his family and close friends, but chose George after his father.

George VI’s elder brother, who reigned briefly in 1936 as Edward VIII, was always known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David – he had been baptised Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David after (in order): the Duke of Clarence; Prince Albert, the consort of Victoria; his great grandfather, Christian IX of Denmark; and the four patron saints of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Charles III could have chosen any of his four names – Charles Philip Arthur George – and for a while, the bookies’ favourite was George VII. Frankly, he could have chosen anything – Algernon IX, for example, even though there have been no previous King Algernons. But sense prevailed.

In choosing his name, His Majesty follows two previous kings called Charles Stuart.

Charles I was born in Dunfermline, Scotland (where Charles III visited on 1 October to confer its new city status). His son, Charles II chose to be crowned King of Scots at Scone Abbey on 1 January 1651. His English coronation at Westminster Abbey was not until 10 years later, on 23 April 1661.

When Charles III is crowned at Westminster in spring or summer 2023, it will be over the ‘Stone of Scone’ (Lia Fàil), known as the Stone of Destiny – the ancient symbol of Scottish monarchy. Stolen by the English King Edward I in 1296, and used to crown all monarchs up to Elizabeth II, the Stone of Destiny was returned to Scotland in 1996 and will be specially transported from the Crown Room in Edinburgh Castle to Westminster for the occasion, before being returned (it will then be re-homed in Perth in 2024 – see page 8).

Below, we outline the other changes that have ensued to noble titles and styles that are held by the Royal Family in Scotland.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH

In theory, Charles is now Duke of Edinburgh, the title inherited from his father, Prince Philip, on his death in 2021. But in reality it is now merged into the Crown, unless Charles chooses to bestow it upon another member of the Royal Family. In 1999, when Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar married, it was announced that he would eventually become Duke of Edinburgh, but Charles has decided not to do that so far.

The title was first created on 26 July 1726 in the Peerage of Great Britain by King George I, for his grandson Prince Frederick, who also became Prince of Wales the following year. Frederick never became king, and the title passed to his son, Prince George, who became King George III in 1760, at which time the title merged with the Crown and ceased to exist.

Queen Victoria recreated the title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1866 for her second son Prince Alfred. When Alfred became the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1893, he retained his British titles, but his only son, also Alfred, died

Following the accession of King Charles III, we look at how this affects royal titles in Scotland

Charles may be king of the nation of England and Wales, but in Scotland he is monarch to the people, not the place

CLOCKWISE,

FROM ABOVE: James I of Scotland by an unknown artist; upon the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011, the couple became Earl and Countess of Strathearn; Princess Elizabeth, the only daughter of James VI and I to survive infancy, and sister to Charles I

in 1899, so the Dukedom of Edinburgh was extinguished when the elder Alfred died in 1900. Finally, in 1947 King George VI bestowed the Dukedom on Philip Mountbatten on his marriage to Princess Elizabeth.

DUKE OF ROTHESAY

As the eldest son of the monarch, Prince William automatically becomes Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

The first person to hold the Rothesay dukedom was David Stewart, son of King Robert II, in 1398. After his death, his brother, who became King James I, received the title, and forever after it went to the heir apparent to the Scottish Crown – a 1469 Act of the Parliament of Scotland confirmed this pattern of succession.

EARL OF CARRICK

This title emerged in 1186 out of the old Lordship of Galloway. In 1185, Galloway was divided, and Duncan, son of Gille Brigte (Gilbert) took the northern part, known as Carrick, which is more or less modern Ayrshire. His son or possibly grandson Niall had an eldest daughter named Marjorie who succeeded him, becoming Countess of Carrick in her own right. Marjorie was widowed in 1270, but the next year she met Robert de Brus hunting in her lands in Fife. Legend says Marjorie imprisoned Robert until he agreed to a marriage, and their eldest son became the famous Robert the Bruce, who reigned as Robert I, King of Scots. From that point on, the title was with the Crown. A separate Earldom of Carrick (on Eday, Orkney) was created in 1628 by Charles I for John Stewart, a younger son of Robert, Earl of Orkney, the illegitimate son of King James V.

BARON OF RENFREW

This is a tricky one. ‘Baron of…’ would indicate a Scottish feudal barony, which is not a peerage title (normally ‘Baron…’). However, it seems that it has been held by the Scottish heir apparent since 1404 and is closely associated with the title Duke of Rothesay. Some legal scholars say that the 1469 Act of the Scottish Parliament confirming the succession effectively converted it to a peerage, but the official position is that it remains a feudal dignity. That said, the title Lord Renfrew has been used by royals when they wished to travel incognito, including the Prince of Wales (later King

Edward VII) and Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII and then Duke of Windsor). Prince Charles was even said to have used the name ‘Charles Renfrew’ when he was dating Diana.

THE LORD OF THE ISLES

This title stretches back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland, beginning in the 12th century with Somerled and his Clan Donald descendants, the Norse-Gaelic rulers of the Isle of Man, Argyll, and the Western Isles, with its main seat in Finlaggan on Islay. Largely independent of the Scottish Crown, the MacDonalds ruled the Isles of Arran, Bute, Islay and Man, the Hebrides (plus Skye from 1438), and on the mainland most of Argyll, plus Ross, Knoydart, Ardnamurchan, and the Kintyre peninsula.

In 1493 King James IV seized the estates and titles held by John MacDonald II after he was found to have signed a treaty in 1462 with Edward IV of England and the Earl of Douglas agreeing to help them conquer Scotland. The Clan Donald chiefs regularly contested this in a number of uprisings, notably Donald Dubh’s Rebellions in 1501–1505 and 1545. More recently, the Lordship of the Isles has no reality other than a style used by the Duke of Rothesay, the eldest son and heir apparent of the King of Scots. Thus, it signifies the unification of the whole of Scotland under the Crown.

PRINCE AND GREAT STEWARD OF SCOTLAND

This is the other Scottish title now held by Prince William as next in line to the throne. Robert III granted the Principality of Scotland in a charter of 1404 to the then heir apparent, the future James I. It was given substance during the reign of James III, when lands in Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Kirkcudbrightshire were taken as patrimony of and as an income for the sovereign’s eldest son. However, the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, abolished such feudal duties and privileges, leaving the Prince’s status mainly in name only.

GREAT STEWARD OF SCOTLAND

Normally conjoined with Prince of Scotland, the Great Stewardship of Scotland was first granted to Walter Fitz Alan by David I, and came to the Crown in 1371 through Robert II, son of Robert the Bruce’s daughter, Marjorie, and Walter Stewart, 6th Great Steward of Scotland. This was the origin of the House of Stewart/Stuart, and the title is a potent symbol that monarchy descends linearly, not from the childless Elizabeth I and her Tudor forebears, but the Stuart dynasty, and via George I, Elector of Hanover, through his grandmother, Elizabeth Stuart Queen of Bohemia, sister of Charles I.

EARL OF STRATHEARN

When Prince William was made Duke of Cambridge on his marriage to Catherine Middleton in 2011, the couple also became Earl and Countess of Strathearn in Scotland. This was the fourth creation of the title.

Originally, the Earl or Mormaer of Strathearn in Perthshire was a Scottish nobility title of unknown origin but attested in a document of (possibly) 1115. The first known mormaer, Malise I, accompanied King David I at the Battle of the Standard in 1138, and the last was Malise V, also Earl of Caithness and Orkney.

The earldom was forfeited by King Edward Balliol, but in 1344 it was regranted by King David II to Maurice de

This was the origin of the House of Stewart/ Stuart, and the title is a potent symbol that monarchy descends linearly

Moravia (Moray), a favourite of the king who had a claim as the nephew and stepfather of Malise.

It then passed to the Stewart/Graham line in 1357 with Earl Robert, who became Robert II in 1371, and it was taken by the eldest son of his second marriage, David Stewart.

When David died in 1386, his daughter Euphemia became Countess Palatine of Strathearn and Caithness, but resigned the Caithness title to her uncle Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl, before 1402. She married a Graham, who became Earl of Strathearn by right of marriage. Their son, another Malise, inherited the Strathearn title, but was deprived of it by King James I and, as second prize, was created first Earl of Menteith in his own right. It was then granted to Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl, Strathearn and Caithness, son of Robert II, younger half-brother of Robert III, and an uncle of James I.

After the imprisonment and death of his son, Walter turned against the king and conspired with his grandson Robert Stewart, Master of Atholl, and Sir Robert Graham, culminating in the king’s assassination in 1437. Walter was tortured, then disembowelled, and beheaded, and the Earldom remained dormant until 2011. It will next pass to William’s son, Prince George, born in 2013.

EARL OF DUMBARTON

The King’s other son, Prince Harry, is also Earl of Dumbarton. This title has only been created twice, first in 1675 for Lord George Douglas, son of the Marquess of Douglas and younger brother of the Earl of Selkirk, for services fighting in the FrancoDutch War, whose son, George, the second Earl, died unmarried. It was recreated in 2018 when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle. Their son, Archie, has the right to use the title as a courtesy, but so far his parents have refrained from using it.

ANNE, PRINCESS ROYAL, KNIGHT OF THE THISTLE

The King’s eldest sibling, Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, is a great lover of Scotland, but bears no Scottish nobility title, although during her father’s lifetime she was Princess Anne of Edinburgh. In 2000 she was created an Extra Knight of the Order of the Thistle, as was Prince William, in 2012. The King is now Sovereign of the Order.

EARL OF INVERNESS

This title was granted to Queen Elizabeth’s second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, when he married Sarah Ferguson in 1986. There have been three earlier creations, plus one that doesn’t really count.

The first Earl of Inverness was created in 1718 in the Jacobite Peerage of Scotland, together with the titles Viscount of Innerpaphrie and Lord Cromlix and Erne, by James Francis Edward Stuart (known as James VIII & III or ‘The Old Pretender’) in favour of the Honourable John Hay of Cromlix, and it was upgraded to Duke of Inverness in 1727. Both titles became extinct upon his death in 1740, and the Stuarts never regained the throne.

The earldom was created again in 1801, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, as a subsidiary title of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, sixth son of George III, but it was extinguished in 1843. The Duke’s second marriage was to his mistress, Lady Cecilia Gore or Buggin or Underwood, which was in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, making the marriage legally invalid.

Queen Victoria must have felt sorry for Cecilia, her aunt by

marriage, as she granted her the title of Duchess of Inverness. The title was “remaindered to the heirs male of her body lawfully begotten”, but there were none, so the title became extinct upon Cecilia’s death in 1873.

Next, came Prince George, second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and grandson of Queen Victoria, but when the Prince became King George V in 1910 the earldom merged with the Crown.

Much the same happened with George V’s second son, Prince Albert, in 1920, and again the title merged into the Crown when Albert succeeded his abdicated brother Edward VIII in 1936, becoming King George VI.

EARL OF FORFAR

Prince Edward did not receive a Scottish title when he married Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999 but the Queen made him Earl of Forfar in Angus, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, to mark his 55th birthday in March 2019.

The County of Forfar, renamed Angus since 1928, is the site of Glamis Castle, seat of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne, the family home of Edward’s beloved grandmother Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.

The only other creation of the Earldom was in 1661 in the Peerage of Scotland, as a subsidiary title to the Earldom of Ormond, It became extinct as a title in 1715 when Archibald Douglas, the second Earl, died of his wounds fighting the Jacobites at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. He died unmarried, with no children.

Prince Edward has two children, Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor (born 2003) and James MountbattenWindsor, Viscount Severn (born 2007). There is some discussion whether they should now be styled Royal Highness and prince or princess, or as the children of an earl. It is likely they will decide for themselves.

WHAT IF THE MONARCH HAD NO SONS?

There has been some lack of clarity in the past as to who should bear the Scottish titles. Both Mary, Queen of Scots, and George II used the title and style Prince of Scotland. But when George VI came to the throne, having two daughters, there was a difference of opinion between the then Lord Lyon, Sir Francis James Grant, and the Scottish Lords of Appeal advising the Garter King of Arms in England. It was never resolved, but unless Charlotte, currently third in line, somehow overtakes her brother and father, it won’t be an issue. Mind you, stranger things have happened. S

Dr. Bruce Durie is a Scottish genealogist, heraldist and historian, and a direct descendant of the original Earls of Strathearn. brucedurie.co.uk

LEFT TO RIGHT: Princess Anne became an Extra Knight of the Order of the Thistle in 2000; James Francis Edward Stewart

Though she bears no Scottish nobility title, in 2000 Anne was created an Extra Knight of the Order of the Thistle

Words by PAUL STAFFORD

Tibet on White Esk

It’s not a sight you’d expect to see in the Scottish Lowlands:

cheerful prayer ags apping in the breeze around a gleaming, white-and-gold stupa.

With only small villages for miles around, western Europe’s largest Buddhist temple, Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre, seems like an incongruous addition to this bucolic setting.

“Samye Ling was the rst Tibetan Buddhist centre that was established in Europe,” explains Ani Gelongma Lhamo, a Buddhist nun and native of Scotland, who has lived at the temple since 1989. Dressed in red robes, her head shaved, she speaks with a clear, calm authority that has even led to her addressing Scottish Parliament about the enduring importance of tolerance and compassion.

The monastery, founded in 1967, is of the scale that one would expect in India’s Himalayan north. Here in rural Scotland, instead of uffy yaks and white-capped peaks, the backdrop consists of woolly sheep, rolling elds and dark green wedges of forest. The local community, many of whom aren’t Buddhist, are partly responsible for the pristine gardens that enhance the monastery’s peaceful atmosphere. Although just how Tibetan and Scottish culture became so neatly fused together here is anything but a Zen story.

RAGGED PATHS TO PERFECTION

When the rst lamas arrived in this backwater area of Scotland in 1967, only one building existed on the site, ironically a hunting lodge called Johnstone House. “That was the ower power time and I believe quite a few celebrities and whatnot came here,” explains Ani Lhamo.

Many of the lamas themselves were dealing with private and existential traumas following China’s annexation of the reclusive Himalayan country in 1951. Reaction came in the form of 1959’s Tibetan Uprising, which ultimately led to almost all senior Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa, eeing their ancestral lands along with many thousands of ordinary Tibetans.

Conditions in northern India’s refugee camps posed another threat to life, with smallpox and tuberculosis rife. Soon, with no hope of returning home, sites around the world were sought for new temples, and lamas were being posted to the United States, as well as rural Dumfriesshire.

One of those Tibetans, the current abbot of Kagyu Samye Ling, is Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, who arrived in Scotland in 1969. These days he navigates the Tibetan Centre’s paths on a mobility scooter. Speaking in a calm manner, his voice barely ascends above a whisper; he lost a lung to

Our writer visits the Buddhist monastery of Kagyu Samye Ling, which has been based in Scotland’s southwest since the 1960s

When the first lamas arrived in this backwater area of Scotland in 1967, only one building existed on the site, ironically a hunting lodge

ABOVE: Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche and Ani Gelongma Lhamo OPPOSITE PAGE: Kagyu Samye Ling

tuberculosis in his youth, following a near fatal escape from Tibet that saw 13 people of a party of 300 make it out safely.

Being thrust so violently into the western world, after a youth spent without electricity, roads or radios, led to many temptations; particularly when rubbing shoulders with celebrities, who were attracted to this new Buddhist site in Scotland as much for the publicity as the precepts.

Unsurprisingly, the frivolity of those early years didn’t sit well with some members of the local Eskdalemuir community unaccustomed to visitors from the outside.

“In the beginning, this was a farming area. It was very conservative, so we used to get very bad telephone messages saying ‘what are you doing. You people are devils...don’t come here. This is a Christianity country!’” says Lama Yeshe.

By his own admission, Lama Yeshe was gradually swayed by the hedonistic lifestyles led by the celebrities he was encountering. It was the remorse of seeing a photo of some dead fish – fish he had killed on a trip to Orkney – that led him back to the Buddhist way of living. “Gradually the frivolous part of it or the inappropriate part fell away, and there grew this steady interest and wish to learn from what the Tibetan lamas had to share,” says Ani Lhamo.

TOP TO BOTTOM:

The grounds at Kagyu Samye Ling are open to the public; inside the Buddhist temple, which is also open to the public

A PLACE FOR PEACE

Eskdalemuir is the ideal place to tap into peace, nature, and tranquility. When a suitable temple site was being sought in the mid-60s, Eskdalemuir stood out for being in one of the least densely populated parts of southern Scotland, yet still well connected to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

“Gradually local people saw that we didn’t harm their culture, but that we brought more resources and more people here. So, then people started to appreciate us,” says Lama Yeshe. “Buddhism is not a conversionist religion, we accept all faiths. But to all people we only say, ‘be kind, be nice, be compassionate’ and that’s how we managed to survive.”

These days, staples of the Buddhist way of life are increasingly being co-opted into modern living in Scotland, albeit stripped of their religious associations: meditation apps are all the rage, and vegetarianism, veganism and their flexitarian variants are increasingly seen as an essential evolution of how we eat.

“Buddhism has changed the whole world. Now it’s one of the most appreciated religions in the world. It’s because there’s no discrimination in race, religion, gender, no matter old or young,” Lama Yeshe says. And if Kagyu Samye Ling’s grounds are anything to go by, the temple is a model for rewilding, as well.

The grounds – which, along with the temple and a café, are open to the public – are a rural idyll: the air hums with insects, birdsong, and the babbling confluence of rivers nearby, merging occasionally with the rhythmic chants of the monks and nuns. The gardens are sculpted with lily pad-flecked ponds, woodland paths and neatly tended gardens and allotments.

There’s a self-sufficiency and a sense of balance between humans and nature that could serve as a model for sustainability. A local lady tells me that she comes regularly to help with the gardening because it’s so peaceful.

“This is like shelter. This is a refuge for humanity. A refuge also for animals,” says Lama Yeshe. “We need to take good care of the environment. If we have any small [piece of] land, we’ve been planting trees. So, we will do everything to take care of the environment.”

But flashes of that old cultural divide occasionally still reverberate around Kagyu Samye Ling. Most recently, a planning application to open a military weapon firing range nearby caused great concern. “We have a precept to not harm others...so really what we’re saying is ‘if you could please do it somewhere else,’ because we’re not saying, ‘you mustn’t do it because we don’t believe in it’ we’re just saying, ‘please don’t do it here,’” explains Ani Lhamo.

In July 2022 the bid to build the firing range was overturned by the Scottish government. Peace endures at Kagyu Samye Ling, serving as an example of how, when cultures so indomitable as those of Tibet and Scotland combine, something beautiful and unique is born. S

Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre has reopened after the Covid-19 lockdown. The centre’s short-term courses, such as the two-day mindfulness in nature, or the introduction to compassion retreat, are running again and accommodation is available to visitors, regardless of faith. For further reading, Lama Yeshe’s book, From a Mountain in Tibet, offers an honest appraisal of his youth in Tibet and life at Kagyu Samye Ling.

There’s a self-sufficiency and a sense of balance between humans and nature that could serve as a model for sustainability

Words by MARK ROWE

Between theUists

The tiny island of Benbecula was once home to the MacDonalds of Clanranald and played a crucial role in the escape of Scotland’s most famous prince…

Benbecula is one of the smaller vertebrae that comprise the spine of the Outer Hebrides’ island chain.

Just eight miles long and eight miles broad in the beam, nature has neatly slotted it, in a pleasingly jigsaw-like way, between North and South Uist. Many visitors traverse this pebble in the Atlantic by car in just 10 minutes, but in so doing they miss an island that punches, from a historical and wildlife perspective, above its weight.

In case you were wondering, the stress is on the second syllable, ‘ben-BECK-you-luh’ and the island’s Gaelic name, Beinn na Faoghla, translates as ‘the mountain of the fords’.

The ‘mountain’ in question is Rueval (Ruabhal), which rises to the mighty-mouse height of 124m (406ft) amid a surrounding land of unrelenting atness, and those who reach its summit (an easy climb of 45 minutes) are rewarded with a disproportionately elevated view of the fretwork of innumerable inlets and lochs that speckle the island.

For centuries, this water-world was the stronghold of the MacDonalds of Clanranald, a powerful family from South Uist who held Benbecula after the Norse occupation concluded in the 13th century.

The Clanranalds were descendants of the rst Lord of the Isles, who was also a MacDonald, and they dominated affairs for 500 years (they were ultimately forced to sell Benbecula to pay off bad debts).

The clan’s legacy is visible across the island. One of the oldest buildings on Benbecula is Nunton House, which

PREVIOUS PAGE:

The island of Benbecula is a stepping stone between North and South Uist CLOCKWISE,

FROM TOP LEFT:

Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Benbecula in 1746 before escaping to Skye; the ruined medieval chapel and cemetery of Teampull Mhoire; a red-backed sandpiper hiding amid foliage on Benbecula

became the clan’s principal residence in the 18th century.

The Clanranalds – and Benbecula more widely – are also deeply interwoven with the travails of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Everyone has heard of the famous Skye Boat Song with its refrain of ‘over the sea to Skye’, far fewer, perhaps, have been curious enough to ask, ‘where from?’ The answer was, of course, Benbecula.

After his botched rebellion and crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746, the Bonnie Prince fled from the loyalist forces and made for the Hebrides. Blown off course in a storm, he was driven up the Minch and on 26 April made landfall on Benbecula’s east coast at Rossinish.

The prince hid around Rueval and other parts of the Uists and was eventually sheltered at Nunton House. Then in June, Lady Clanranald, wife of the clan chief, dressed the prince as an Irish spinning maid, called Betty Burke, thanks to Flora MacDonald, whose branch of the wider Donald clan had supported the prince’s 1745 uprising, and he returned to Rossinish to sail to Skye.

The tale is too often over-romanticised, for the reality would have been gruelling. Before the causeways linking Benbecula to its neighbours were built, the island crossings and coastal edges were among the most treacherous in the Outer Hebrides.

Tidal currents were powerful and terrifyingly fast, fords

© PAUL TOMKINS/VISITSCOTLAND/DANITA DELIMONT/OLIVERR SMART/ALAM Y

were marked by a series of cairns and navigable by foot only by those who knew the way in fine weather. Even today, the east side of Benbecula is largely left to its own devices. There is no great farming activity, and it’s particularly hard – even by the standards of the Outer Hebrides – to pick your way through the bogs, inter-tidal marshes, and open moorland.

It’s fair to say the prince wouldn’t have had much time or inclination for sightseeing, given the urgency with which the English Crown was breathing down his neck. Fortunately for modern-day visitors, things are now a little more tranquil on the island, and the appreciable charms of Benbecula are immediately obvious.

Opposite Nunton House stands an 18th-century farmstead, Nunton Steadings. The bell in the front gable is original and was rung to bring workers in from the field.

It’s fair to say, the prince wouldn’t have had much time or inclination for sightseeing, given the urgency with which the English Crown was breathing down his neck

LEFT TO RIGHT:

Flora MacDonald famously helped the prince to escape to Skye while he was dressed as an Irish spinning maid, and their story is one of the most famous in Scottish folklore; beautiful Benbecula moorland blooming with heather

For too long the building, with its slate roofs and casement windows, has been best described as ‘attractively ruined’ but it is now in the process of restoration, becoming mission control for the North Uist Distillery.

Back across the road from the steadings, you’ll find the ruined medieval chapel of Teampull Mhoire. The land where the church now stands was acquired by the Benedictine community of monks on Iona and became known as Baile a’ Mhanaich, ‘the monk’s township’.

In the 16th century, the chapel fell into disrepair. The chapel roof has long gone but the gables and the lower walls hang on, surrounded by tombstones mantled in lichens.

Across the island though, it is the wildlife that can halt you in your tracks. Benbecula is one of the best places in the UK to see hen harriers. Several pairs nest on the island and while you will struggle to spot this creature back on the mainland, where it has been subject to decades of illegal persecution, the chances are, one will fly over you as you make your way around the island.

The male hen harrier is easy to identify as its grey wings appear to be tipped in black ink (the female is brown) and in spring and summer you may observe the male pass a prey item it has caught to its mate in mid-air.

Benbecula’s Culla Bay boasts a chunky slice of coastal sea meadows, known as machair, that run down the east coast of the Outer Hebrides. Thanks to sensitive farming policies, such as laying down seaweed as fertiliser, spring sowing and late harvesting, the land behind the bay is benefiting lapwing and the great yellow bumblebee; the area’s international

ABOVE:

The ruins of Howmore are regarded as the most important Christian site in the Outer Hebrides and are believed to date from AD1200

importance as a breeding site for corncrake has seen it designated a Special Protection Area.

Benbecula blurs at its southern fringes into the other realm of the old Clanranald kingdom, South Uist. The two islands today are conjoined by a causeway across the South Ford and where Culla Bay ends, South Uist’s stirring Atlantic coastline picks up the baton, its brilliant white beaches shimmering for an almost unbroken 20 miles. The air feels almost liquid, an absence of light pollution percolated through shallow seas and freshwater lochs.

Travel along one of the long, flat lanes that head for the west coast of South Uist and you reach the fractured remains of walls, gables, and a still-consecrated churchyard. These are the ruins of Howmore (Tobha Mòr), which are regarded by archaeologists as the most important Christian site in the Outer Hebrides. Howmore is believed to have been an important ecclesiastical centre from early medieval times.

Today’s visible remains are thought to date from AD1200 and resemble early Irish–Celtic monastic sites. ‘Tobha’ comes from an old Norse word for ‘mound’, and the four ruined churches and chapels sit on a knoll surrounded by low-lying lumpy and uneven land.

The ruins were also home to the 16th-century Clanranald stone, which bears the coat of arms of the clan. In 1990, the stone was stolen, and only discovered in a London flat five years later, during a house clearance after the occupant died. This prompted media and local talk of a curse that struck anyone who desecrated the site.

The less credulous may simply acknowledge that the site of Howmore and, more widely, South Uist, simply feel ancient. This is a land of undulating flatness, as though unseen but gentle eddies were rolling along just under the machair, causing fields to rise like the crest of waves, hiding the Atlantic Ocean until you are almost upon it.

One supposes this landscape appealed to the Clanranalds because they would have been able to spot any would-be invaders from miles away. A few centuries after the Clanranalds had been whittled to shadows, little, it seemed, had changed. In the 1930s, the photographer Margaret Fay Shaw, who adopted South Uist as her home, wrote of a land with ‘thatched houses standing like haystacks on the ‘rim of the world’. In all honesty, much the same could be said today. S

This is the land of undulating flatness, as though unseen but gentle eddies were rolling along just under the machair, causing fields to rise like the crest of waves

© PAUL TOMKINS/VISITSCOTLAND

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CATCHING THE LIGHT

Writer and poet Kenneth Steven profiles Scotland’s most celebrated living landscape artist

THIS IMAGE: John Lowrie Morrison, or ‘Jolomo’, in his studio

J

ohn Lowrie Morrison (known affectionately as Jolomo) is very much one of Scotland’s best-loved painters. Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery: you only have to visit any one of a host of galleries to see the number of Jolomo-like prints and originals by the many artists who’ve sought to copy his distinctive style.

Often enough there’s a white house low to the ground; banks of moody grey island hills behind, a wild blue sea somewhere in between, and in the foreground a vivid mustard yellow or orange.

John didn’t begin his days in the west of Scotland. Rather, he was brought up in Glasgow and went to Glasgow schools; in the late 60s he studied at the famous Glasgow School of Art. That’s one side of the story.

And yet in a way he did begin his days on the west coast of Scotland: his Hebridean roots are strong and of deep significance. That Morrison surname should offer the clue, for he has relations in Skye and the Outer Isles – but more than that, much more than that – it was here he visited as a child, experiencing everything about the west and the islands that he’s gone on to pour into innumerable canvases.

There was art in his family: his maternal grandfather Henry Lowrie was a brilliant watercolourist as well as being a man of strong faith. Those two links to the past are pillars of equal importance in John’s life.

Somehow you might well imagine that he has been painting all the time, creating his oilscapes since those days at Glasgow School of Art, and doing so somewhere on the west coast. But that’s not the case.

John has earned his apprenticeship without a doubt. For 20 years he taught art at Lochgilphead High School, and by the end of that time he had become Principal Teacher of Art. But he experienced a very real call to painting and to preaching, and in the end he cut his links to the world of education once and for all in 1996. Now at last he was free to become a painter, to devote precious time to the business of creating, and to sharing his faith as a lay preacher.

John and his family live in Tayvallich, surely one of the most magical locations in the whole of the Scottish west. It’s an area I first visited with friends only a few years ago. I was writing an article on the early chapels of Argyll; these tiny places of worship established by the Celtic Christians.

I had been used to summers spent in corners of north Argyll where the hills are higher and more rugged. I find it hard to capture what’s at the heart of south Argyll in words because as much as anything it’s about a feeling. Low-lying oakwoods and lochans; edges of sea that curl their way inland, and magnificent headlands with gnarled granite or what might be the ruins of some ancient fort. The sudden glimpses of open sea with water caught between blue and green, even on the most miserable of days in late October and November. Edges of islands and great banks of cloud lying behind – or perhaps they’re all island or all cloud? What’s certain is that it’s changing the whole time; coming and going in the light, in the power of this translucent west coast light so beloved by photograhers and painters alike.

It was then I encountered Kilmartin Glen for the first time too, not many miles from Tayvallich. Its low-lying meadows are filled with standing stones and chambered cairns, and there on the edge of it all Dunadd fort, the birthplace and cradle of Scotland. Moments of light coming and going all the time; never two the same.

That’s what I think of at the heart of so much of John Lowrie Morrison’s work.

They’re moments of light; sudden vivid illuminations or epiphanies. And so often that light is falling on a crofthouse: I feel myself back in South Uist at the age of three or four and see a collie flowing through the wind, blown out in black and whiteness, and the hens finding little bits of sustenance around the croft door.

It’s that wildness I love in these paintings. There’s an honesty about them I value and respect very deeply. Land and sea and sky are all being tugged about in the wind; you can feel the wind. That captures something at the very heart of crofting existence: the sheer struggle. Too many drive through Harris or Skye on a benign and beguiling August day when there isn’t so much as a breath of wind; the occupants of the car, the tourists, will comment disparagingly about all that’s cluttered around the croft door: nets, broken paint pots and spades.

But those tourists know nothing of the winter that went before when there was a near constant gale. They weren’t there when it was impossible to take a step outside to get a handful of peats because of the sheer power of that buffetting wind. They can’t see the reality of the days and the true nature of the struggle.

I remember one of the first of John’s paintings that I encountered years ago at the Argyll Hotel on Iona. I had started to lead creative writing retreats there and loved the North Lounge more than any other room. To me it felt akin to being in a boat: stretched along the room’s back wall was a long canvas depicting a section of the northwest coast of Mull, with its boulders and cliffs. Every time I looked at it I felt I was standing there, sensing the very place that must have inspired it. It was nothing less than a complete bottling of the west; a capturing of every element.

John produces a great number of canvases (sometimes he’ll finish several in a single day), but there’s much more hard work lying behind them. He digs into the places he paints, to use the verb that poet Seamus Heaney famously found to describe his search for words. John has to dig into those places to have a sense somehow of the depth of the soil. He sketches places and he photographs them, and he researches them too – reads up on them and learns them.

Even the individual colours that he chooses for his work have a symbolic and a religious significance. For this capturing of light and capturing of wildscape is very much linked to the faith journey: it’s an inherent part of it. And there’s many a Sunday when John is in the pulpit as a lay preacher; a much-needed task here in this part of Argyll where communities are small and scattered, and where a bare handful of ministers must travel further and further to care for congregations.

So in the end I think of him as a kind of crofter too, as much as Seamus Heaney was with his pen. He’s dug into the landscape of his forebears and found rich colours and vivid depictions of a world buried deep and strong in heart and soul, and he’s put it beautifully onto canvases. He’s managed to capture the light.

Even the individual colours that he chooses for his work have a symbolic and a religious significance. For this capturing of light and capturing of wildscape is very much linked to the faith journey

LEFT: Fading Light Tayvallich by Jolomo, oil on canvas

Armstrong Clan Society

Arms awarded by the Lord Lyon in 1985. We invite descendants of the Armstrongs, Crosiers, Fairburns, Groziers and Nixons thru their paternal or maternal lines to join this famous family. We are tax-exempt and publish the ARMSTRONG CHRONICLES quarterly for our worldwide membership. www.armstrong.org

Chris Armstrong, President Armstrong Clan Society P O Box 346

Flowery Branch, GA 30542

Clan Cumming Society USA

1997

Contact Information: G. Allen Cummings, Secretary 330 S Middleton Drive Unit 203 Calabash, NC 28467

THE CLAN FRASER SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

THE CLAN FRASER SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

SALTOUN LOVAT

SALTOUN LOVAT

Operating under the authority of The RT. Hon. Lady Saltoun, Chief of the name of Fraser

Operating under the authority of The RT. Hon. Lady Saltoun,

Chief of the name of Fraser

The RT. Hon. Lord Lovat,

Of the Clan Fraser of Lovat

Registered members are invited to share in the bond of this heritage and receive The Nessie newsletter.

The RT. Hon. Lord Lovat, Of the Clan Fraser of Lovat Registered members are invited to share in the bond of this heritage and receive The Nessie newsletter.

For membership and information please visit: www.cfsna.com

For membership and information please visit: www cfsna com

Membership is open to

In

from

Bard, Beard, Beaird,

of the name

whose

Biard

Scottish

Clan Baird Commander Richard Baird of Rickarton, Ury and Lochwood, President, Stonehaven, Scotland Dr. Debra Baird, Convenor www.clanbairdsociety.com

Clan Blair Society

Membership cordially invited from Blair descendants, and other interested parties. clanblair.org Russell McCrary Email: clanmembership@clanblair.org

Family of Bruce International, Inc., USA

Family of Bruce International, Inc., USA, the only such organization recognized by the hereditary chief of the Name of Bruce, The Rt. Hon. Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, is a non-profit organization established to create kinship amongst its family members and promote interest in the Family of Bruce and its history. Membership is open to persons who qualify by surname, by descent, or by recognized septs: Carlisle, Carruthers, Crosby, Randolph and Stenhouse. Associate membership is also available. Membership inquiries should be directed to:

Donald E. Bruce, FSA Scot President 1051 Eagle Ridge Trail Stillwater, MN 55082 bruce1051@comcast.net www.familyofbruceinternational.org

Polly A. (Bruce) Tilford, Secretary 5561 Earl Young Road Bloomington, IN 47408

HOUSE OF BURNETT, INC.

Sanctioned by James C.A. Burnett of Leys, Chief of the Name, and Head of the House of Burnett

Contact: Jackelyn A Daugherty, Secretary PO Box 666 Topock, AZ 86436 (928) 788-9434 jdaugherty@1791.com

Carol

Clan Dunbar International Society Inc

Sir James Michael Dunbar, 14th Baronet of Mochrum, and 39th Hereditary Chief of the Name and Arms of Dunbar. The Clan is devoted to discovering and encouraging the history and genealogy of this great Lowland Family and its Septs. In addition to its exciting DNA Project, the Clan is planning its tenth tour of Scotland in 2024, focusing on Dunbar history and estates.

Contact David C. Dunbar at Chieftain@clandunbar.com or P.O. Box 1493, Tomball, TX 77377 www.ClanDunbar.com

The Scottish Home

Des Plains Avenue

Riverside, IL 60546

Celebrating 175 years of Home, Family and Love. 708-447-5092 | ChicagoScots.org

CLAN ELLIOT SOCIETY, U.S.A.

Clan President Jim Dougherty

welcomes into membership all who are connected with this great border family.

Please direct inquiries to:

Membership-Treasurer

Matt Elliot PO Box 75, Smithfield KY, 40068 https://elliotclan-usa.com

Clan Grant Society-USA

Allan Bisset Bissett Bowie Buie

Cairns Gilroy MacAllan MacGilroy MacIlroy

MacKerron MacKiaran Pratt Suttie More of Drumcork

(And spelling variations)

RAND ALLAN, Membership Secretary 6102 Calle Vera Cruz

La Jolla, CA 92037

(858) 454-3846 secretary@clangrant-us.org president@clangrant-us.org www.clangrant-us.org

For membership contact Keith MacGregor

Lawrie, Secretary

The Esplanade, Broughty Ferry, Dundee DD5 2EL Scotland

Clan Hamilton Society

The Clan Hannay Society

Clan MacLaren

of North

Recognized by the Chief of Clan MacLaren

Mark McLaren, FSA Scot President

April Rich Membership Chair 218 Oxbow Drive Willimantic, CT 06226 clanhaymembership@hotmail.com www.ClanHay.com

The American Branch of the First Family of Scotland welcomes

from descendants of Hay / Hayes / Haynes, Constable, Delgatie, Erroll, Gifford,

MacGarra, Peebles

Clan Irwin Association

Chief and Patron

Alexander H. R. Irvine of Drum, 27th Baron of Drum & Chief of the Name.

Contact: Susan Irvine McRae 5607 Bryar Rose Drive Ooltewah TN 37363-6540 susan.mcrae@clanirwin.org www.clanirwin.org www.facebook.com/groups/clanirwin

IRWIN, IRVINE, IRVIN, IRVING, ERWIN And the many other spellings of the name

KENNEDY SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

cordially invites membership inquiries from all descendants of Kennedy and the Clan Septs: Cannaday Kanaday Cassels Cassillis Carrick MacUlrick MacWalrick Ulric (some spellings may vary) Colleen Caldwell, Membership Chairman Kennedy Society of North America 2115 Pierpont S. Estates Morgantown, West Virginia 26508 c_caldwell83@yahoo.com www.kennedysociety.net

The Honorable Alexander Leslie Chief of Clan Leslie Laura Messing, Chieftain Septs: Abernethy, Bartholomew, Carnie, Lang & More (Moore) Send inquiries to: Linda Flowers, CLSI Treasurer, 302 SW 3rd, Tuttle, OK 73089

lflowers1954@yahoo.com

Clan

Mcdougle MacDugal MacDowal

INQUIRIES TO:

Roger H. Johnston

Stellamar

MACGREGOR

AMERICAN CLAN GREGOR SOCIETY

CLAN MacLELLAN

John B. McClellan, Jr.

Treasurer Clan MacLellan

383 Ash Brook Lane

Sunnyvale, TX 75182-3250 treasurer@clanmaclellan.net

Welcomes MacLellans and their descendants regardless of surname spelling to join in preserving our heritage.

Family names include: MacClellan(d), McClellan(d), McLellan(d) Scholarships available for Scottish studies. Visit our website: www.clanmaclellan.net

Clan Macnachtan Association Worldwide

Founded in 1909 and the only officially recognized Clan Gregor organization in the USA. If you believe you are a Gregor, MacGregor, McGregor

one of the Septs, contact our registrar.

Gregor Grier MacAdams McNish Gregory King Magruder Peter Gregg Lecky McGehee many others

Registrar: Jeanne P., Lehr, 11 Ballas Crt, St. Louis, MO 63131 www.acgsus.org

Clan MacInnes

Int’l Assn. of Clan MacInnes (Aonghais)

descendants of all spelling

including (Mc)Angus, (Mc)Canse, (Mc)Ginnis, (Mc)Guenis, (Mc)Inch, (Mc)Innes, (Mc)Innis, (Mc)Kinnis, (Mc)Masters, (Mc)Neish, (Mc)Ninch, and more. Scott Mcinnis, Member Services: scott@macinnes.org or visit: www.macinnes.org

Family, Philanthropy, Fun

Descendants of the CLAN MACNAUGHTON are invited to join our Worldwide Association to learn and share our MacNaughton and Scottish heritage. For more info go to: clanmacnaughton.net or contact Mary Nivison Burton, Membership Secretary at: membersec@clanmacnaughton.net New Second Edition!

A History of the Clan Macnachtan Paperback available through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca

Clan MacNicol of North America

Chief John MacNeacail of MacNeacail and Scorrybreac

Clan MacNicol, a small but vibrant Clan active in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and the U.S.A. From the misty Isle of Skye, the Hebrides and the Northwest Highlands, the sons and daughters of MacNicol, Nicol, Nicolson (and of other spelling variations) have spread to six continents. Nearly two centuries ago, the Chiefly line emigrated to Australia where it thrives to this day.

Membership open to all who acknowledge the Clan Chief as its leader and wish to join the Society.

New members receive a copy of the book on Clan history and two Clan newsletters during the year.

President and Deputy Membership Secretary Jeremy Nicholson Website www.clanmacnicol.org E-mail presidentna@clanmacnicol.org

Postal Address P.O. Box 501166 Atlanta, GA 31150-1166, USA

Canadian Membership Secretary Jacques McNicoll Website www.clanmacnicol.org E-mail

Muirhead Clan Society

Clan MacRae Society of North America

Clan MacRae Society of North America

Granted Arms in 2008

Granted Arms in 2008

We invite MacRaes of all spelling variations and their descendants to join our Clan MacRae Society. Learn your Scottish MacRae history and family lineage!

Need more info? Contact: Bruce McRae, President 303-670-9611 brucewaynemcrae@gmail.com

We invite MacRaes of all spelling variations and their descendants to join our Clan MacRae Society. Learn your Scottish MacRae history and family lineage! www.macrae.org

Need more info? Contact: 1 Bruce McRae, President 303 670 9611 brucewaynemcrae@gmail.com

CLAN MACTAVISH Inc.

The only organization authorized and under the patronage of the 27th Hereditary Chief of Clan MacTavish, Steven MacTavish of Dunardry.

Anyone bearing the name MacTavish or any of the recognized connected names and their descendants and all variant spellings are invited to join us to celebrate our history. Members receive a newsletter, the “Non Oblitus” and support in doing family genealogy.

Cash - MacTavish - Stephenson - Stevens Stevenson - Thompson - Thomson

For membership information please visit us at www.clanmactavish.org www.facebook.com/ClanMacTavish or contact: Clan MacTavish Treasurer

Clan MacTavish membershipsecretary.mactavish@gmail.com

Nesbitt Nisbet Society of North America

Clan Nisbet, a Borders family, welcomes Nesbit/Nisbet and all various spellings worldwide. Share our history and learn about Alexander Nisbet, Scotland’s famous author of heraldry. For more information, visit www.ibydeit.org or contact Dave Nesbitt Harvey, President, at dharvey@ibydeit.org.

CLAN POLLOCK

23 Garland Rd. Lancaster, NH 03584

The Clan MacThomas

Combie McColm McComas McComb(e) McCombie McComie McComish

SEPT NAMES

MacOmie MacOmish Tam Thom Thomas Thoms Thomson www.clanmacthomas.org

Andrew MacThomas of Finegand, 19th Chief, welcomes members.

Please direct inquiries to: Cathy McComb Ludemann North American Branch membership-na@clanmacthomas.com

CLAN MAITLAND SOCIETY

CHIEF: IAN MAITLAND

The Earl of Lauderdale

WE ARE ALL RELATED!

Contact your local society

NORTH AMERICA

Rosemary Maitland Thom Rthomnvprdcan@aol.com www.clanmaitlandna.org

AUSTRALIA

Amanda Maitland

6/1 Hinemoa Avenue, Normanhurst NSW 2076 clanmaitland@yahoo.com.au

NEW ZEALAND

Judette Maitland 33 Disley Street, Highbury, Wellington 6012 NZ judette@xtra.co.nz

We welcome all with Maitland, Lauderdale, Maitlen and similar name spelling. See the entire list and your family history at: www.clanmaitland.org.uk

Among the Most Ancient Families of Scotland. If you are a descendant of Pollock, Pollok, Pook, Polk, Polke, Paulk, Poalk, Poalke, Poulk, Poolke, Pogue, you are cordially invited to contact: Archie D. Pollock, Jr. P. O. Box 404, Greenville, Ky 42345 (615) 456-1699 apollockis@comcast.net

CLAN RAMSAYInternational

Ramsay Ramsey Rumsey Dalhousie Maule Brechin

Brecheen

Clan Ramsay International, 434 Skinner Blvd., Dunedin, FL 34698 david@ramseyengineering.com www.clanramsay.org

Clan Ross America

Representing the great Highland Clan of Ross since 1976

Paul D Ross, President Virg Bumann, VP Membership 1015 Archer St. San Diego, CA 92109 membership@clanross.org info@clanross.org www.clanross.org

Clan Sinclair Association, Inc. (U.S.A.)

St. Andrew’s Society of Albany

FOUNDED 1803 150 Washington Avenue Albany, New York 12210 www.standrewssocietyalbany.org

Founded

Saint Andrew’s Society of the State of New York

150 East 55th Street - 3rd Floor New York, NY 10022

David M. Murphy, 103rd President Tel. 212/223–4248; Fax 212/223–0748 www.standrewsny.org

SCOTTISH HERITAGE USA, INC.

P.O. Box 457, Pinehurst, NC 28374

Supporting the work of the National Trust for Scotland and providing grants to non-profits promoting and preserving Scottish Tradition, history, crafts and culture. shusa457@gmail.com www.scottishheritageusa.org

NC Scottish Heritage Society

506 Shinnecock Court

New Bern, NC 28562

Join us to learn more about your highland heritage and an opportunity to publish your own research www.theargyllcolonyplus.org

Us

St Andrews Society of the City of Milwaukee

ANDREWS SOCIETY OF THECITY OF MILWAUKEE

ANDREWS SOCIETY OF THECITY OF MILWAUKEE

DISTRESSED

T ANDREWTHE FIRSTCALLED

www.standrewssocietymilwaukee.org

DISTRESSED

ANDREWTHE FIRSTCALLED

Adair Blackstock Dinwiddie Dinwoodie Edgar Herries Kirk Kirkland Latimer Latimore MacKittrick

Maxton Mescall Monreith Moss Nithsdale Paulk Peacock Polk Pollo(c)k Sturgeon Wardlaw

Do you know who came to North America almost 100 years before Columbus’ famous voyage?

Prince Henry Sinclair in 1398

Come join (and enjoy) your Sinclair family

For

Contact: Tom Westgaard, FSA Scot Phone 414-421-1598 P.O. Box 210288 Milwaukee, WI 53221-8005

Clan Uisdean, USA

Defenders of Freedom, Mindful of Knowledge & Labor

Dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the families McCuistion, McCuiston, McQuiston, McQuistion, McQuesten, McChristian, McQuestion, McQueston and all variations thereof in the United States, who are descendants of Uisdean, son of Alexander McDonald, Lord of the Isles, Earl of Ross and Justiciar of the Highlands. Uisdean is also a descendant of Robert the Bruce, hero-king of Scotland.

Contact: BJ McCuiston, Secretary, PO Box 2193 Gilroy, CA 95021-2193 or billiejo@garlic.com

Clan Young

For membership information,

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

The best Scottish-themed events and clan celebrations taking place across the world – start planning now

SCOTLAND

19 November 2022 – 3 January 2023

EDINBURGH’S CHRISTMAS, EDINBURGH

Watch as the city is transformed into a real-life winter wonderland, with traditional Christmas markets, pop-up ice rinks and Christmas light trails. visitscotland.com/see-do/events/ christmas-winter-festivals/ Edinburgh

30 December 2022 –

1 January 2023

EDINBURGH’S HOGMANAY, EDINBURGH

Torchlight parades, street parties, fireworks, and a river swim.

Experience the world-famous New Year’s party. edinburghfestivalcity.com/ festivals/edinburghs-hogmanay

30 December – 1 January 2023

RED HOT HIGHLAND FLING, INVERNESS

Scotland’s biggest Hogmanay celebration is back this year, with music from Scottish supergroup Mànran, fireworks and more. inverness-courier.co.uk/news/ red-hot-highland-fling-to-ring-inthe-bells-287258/

21 January 2023

BURNS NIGHT AT ÒRAN MÓR, GLASGOW

Based inside an old church, this venue is serving up a Burns Night meal with a live bagpiper. oran-mor.co.uk

27 – 28 January 2023

BURNS SUPPER ABOARD THE ROYAL YACHT BRITANNIA

Celebrate the birth of Scotland’s national bard with a five-course menu, Scottish music, and a whisky tasting. royalyachtbritannia.co.uk

8 - 12 March 2023

STANZA POETRY FESTIVAL, ST ANDREWS

Back for another year, this vibrant festival features performances, discussions, workshops, gigs, screenings, and poets from all over the world. stanzapoetry.org/festival

USA & CANADA

13 December 2022

AMERICAN-SCOTTISH FOUNDATION AND BURNS NIGHT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK CHRISTMAS PARTY, NY

A Christmas celebration complete with traditional Scottish Christmas carols to kick-start the festive season in style. americanscottishfoundation.com

14 – 15 January 2023

CENTRAL FLORIDA SCOTTISH HIGHLAND GAMES, FL

This will be a traditional Highland Games, complete with athletics, music, and a real Scottish spirit. flascot.com

20 January 2023

THE 28TH ANNUAL ASF BURNS NIGHT GALA CELEBRATION, NY

The ASF returns for its 28th year to celebrate Scotland’s bard, complete with the essential ‘Address to a Haggis.’ americanscottishfoundation.com

22 January 2023

BURNS NIGHT 2023: THE BARD AND HIS BALLADS, BC Join songsmith Bruce Coughlan

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations are some of the best in the world

for a musical celebration of Rabbie Burns, accompanied by fiddles, pianos, pipes, and whistles. songsmith.ca

25 January 2023

BURNS STATUE CELEBRATION, TORONTO, ON

Celebrate Scotland’s national bard with haggis, neeps, tatties, and good cheer at the Robert Burns Statue in Toronto. standrewstoronto.ca

AUSTRALIA

20 – 22 January 2023

SCOTTISH WEEKENDER, NSW

A chance to celebrate Scotland’s favourite day of the year with a Burns Night supper and a cèilidh. scottishweekender.com

26 March 2023

MELBOURNE HIGHLAND GAMES & CELTIC FESTIVAL

A very Scottish day of clan gatherings, pipe bands, athletics, food, and the Victorian Pipe Band Championships, at Eastfield Park in Melbourne. melbournehighlandgames.org.au

THE STORY BEHIND…

Andrew Liddle’s new book explores the fascinating and little-known personal and political rivalry between Winston Churchill and the leader of the Scottish Prohibition Party

corrects some inaccuracies and sets his story in Scotland straight.

LEFT TO RIGHT:

Author Andrew Liddle is a writer and political consultant in Edinburgh; in 1922 Churchill was defeated by Edwin Scrymgeour for the Dundee seat

Istarted work on Cheers, Mr. Churchill! Winston in Scotland on the day the UK went into its rst Covid-19 lockdown. These restrictions presented challenges to every aspect of life and producing the rst full account of Winston Churchill’s 15 years as MP in Dundee and his wider relationship with Scotland was, of course, no different. Cheers, Mr. Churchill! Winston in Scotland tells the story of the extraordinary personal and political rivalry between Winston Churchill and the leader of the Scottish Prohibition Party, Edwin Scrymgeour. Scrymgeour, who advocated for the complete prohibition of alcohol, rst challenged Churchill in 1908 and would be defeated by him ve times. But he never gave up, eventually defeating the champagne-loving future Prime Minister in 1922. To date, Scrymgeour is the only Prohibitionist ever elected to the House of Commons. But Cheers, Mr. Churchill! also re-evaluates Churchill’s relationship with Scotland, challenging the popular narrative that he hated Scotland or resented Dundee for voting him out. Indeed, by returning to the original sources, a very different picture emerges. Far from holding Scotland in contempt, Churchill was an enthusiast for his constituency and genuinely tried to make life better for the people who lived there. Cheers, Mr. Churchill! not only tells the story of Churchill’s time as an MP in Scotland, but

The main challenge to overcome was research. All the archives – the veritable gold mines that would eventually lead me to discover so much new information about Churchill and Scotland – were, like the rest of outside life, off limits. But all was not lost. I was able to bene t from two particularly wonderful online resources: the Churchill Archive and the British Newspaper Archive.

The life of a researcher is rarely one of drama but discovering previously unknown facts that shed new light –even on someone as well-known as Churchill – is as close to a eureka moment as I will ever get. I can still remember the feeling as I sat in the local history centre in Dundee, surrounded by boxes of completely uncategorised and often unread material, and discovered something new.

This quest for new information – as well as belief in the power of stories – stems from my career as a journalist. But that experience bled through into my writing of Cheers, Mr. Churchill! too. As a trainee reporter I was always told that the best writing was writing that was engaging and comprehensible, not opaque and jargon heavy. The narrative is king – and that is the case in this account too.

Having been a political reporter, I have always been fascinated by how contemporary events can impact how historical events are perceived. Amid the debate about Scotland’s continuing place in the UK, myths and sometimes outright falsehoods about Churchill and Scotland have emerged, even – in one case – appearing on an exam syllabus. By correcting the record, I hope Cheers, Mr. Churchill! will also help restore Churchill’s place in Scotland’s story. S

Cheers, Mr. Churchill!Winston in Scotland is published by Birlinn, available from October 2022, £20, birlinn.co.uk

collections, inspired by the seasons. Created in silver, with yellow and rose gold leaves, hand-enamelled in Winter hues. Also available in Spring, Summer and Autumn enamel colours.

Rings

Beautiful and unique rings available in silver, 9ct yellow, white and rose gold, 18ct gold with enamel, and platinum, many hand-set with diamonds.