The Jacobites of Lanrick

On a trip to Scotland in October 2021 we decided to see if we could find the Lanrick estate, once the home of my paternal ancestors. I knew it was in Perthshire, somewhere between Doune and Callander, but finding the actual spot was a challenge. After several false turns we came across a long low wall stretching for miles across the deeply rural landscape. We followed this round until we spotted a lodge and a large gate. Now a holiday rental, the family staying at the lodge confirmed that it was indeed the entrance to Lanrick.

Encouraged by the ‘right to roam’ that persists in Scotland, we decided to explore. We wandered down a long lane bordered by mature trees in stunning autumn colours and eventually found the sparkling River Teith that runs through the estate. No one was about, so we strolled along the banks of the gorgeous river, musing as we went on the lives of Jacobite family who had lived there.

In 1817, William Brown, my third great grandfather, married Jane Wilsone, a descendent of two landed families, the Wilsones and the Haldanes. Jane’s father, Charles, was one of Glasgow’s most eminent surgeons, a founding board member of Glasgow Royal Infirmary and a leading light in the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. A tall portly man of engaging, easy manners, he was popular with both his colleagues and his patients.

Charles’s father, William Wilsone of Murrayshall, was a Writer to the Signet (the Scottish name for a solicitor), but being an Episcopalian, a Jacobite supporter, and a nonjuror, the Hanoverian government barred him from legal practice after the Jacobite rising of 1745. He was forced to leave his family estate at Sands and move to Murrayshall, where he became factor and land steward to his wife’s cousin, the Laird of Polmaise and Touchadam. Charles’s mother was Lilias Haldane, daughter of John Haldane of Lanrick Castle.   

The Haldanes of Lanrick were staunch Jacobites. John Haldane participated in the ’45 rising in support of Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie), as did his son, Alexander. Following the defeat of the Jacobite army at Culloden in April 1746, John Haldane fled to France and remained there in exile for twenty years, while Alexander Haldane went to England where he lived under an assumed name, unable to return to Scotland.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s two novels, Kidnapped and Catriona, are set in the period after Culloden, giving a vivid account of how various Jacobites, including Alan Breck Stewart and his kinsman, James Stewart of the Glen, evaded capture by the government forces. Based on real people of the same name, James Stewart, wrongfully accused and hanged for the murder of Colin Roy ‘The Red Fox’ Campbell, was half-brother to Charles Stewart of Ardshiel, husband of Lilias Haldane’s sister, Isobel. Charles Stewart also fought at Culloden and fled to France afterwards.

A canny Scot, John Haldane had settled his estate on his children before his exile, so Lanrick was not confiscated, unlike many other Jacobite estates. John Haldane was eventually able to return to Lanrick, where he died in 1764 aged 87. His two sons had died before him, so the estate was inherited by his six daughters, one of whom was Lilias, mother of Charles. They sold the Lanrick estate to Sir John Murray Macgregor for £14,000.

It was sold again subsequently and remained standing until 2002, when its owner, unable or unwilling to pay for its upkeep, decided to demolish it without first obtaining listed building consent. He was admonished by the local authority and ordered to pay a fine of £1,000, a paltry sum for the destruction of such a fine historic building.

Charles Wilsone had twelve brothers and sisters. Perhaps not surprisingly, in view of their ancestor’s link to King James and his Queen, William Wilsone’s thirteen children were also Jacobite supporters, like their father. Because of their refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the King, his sons were barred from entering traditional upper-class professions such as the army, navy or the church, so Charles became a doctor.

Charles’s three unmarried sisters, Miss Marion, Miss Jenny and Miss Lily, lived at Murrayshall all their lives. Known as the Jacobite ladies of Murrayshall, they took every opportunity to demonstrate their disapproval of the Hanoverian monarchy. Generous hosts to friends and family of all political persuasions, when Jacobite sympathisers were invited to dinner, the toast was always ‘to him over the water’, a reference to James Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, exiled in Continental Europe.

In the eighteenth century all Scottish churches were required to say prayers for King George, under threat of closure if they did not. This included the Episcopalian church attended by the Wilsone sisters of Murrayshall. When prayers were said for the Royal family, they would cough and sniff, shut their prayer books with a slam, rise from their knees and yawn audibly.

The family connection to Lanrick had ended when the estate was sold, but these eighteenth century Jacobite ancestors were memorialised by my great grandparents, Charles and Jessie Wilsone Broun. When they married in 1894 and moved to Rugeley in Staffordshire, they named their family home Lanrick House.