Never trust the stories of an old
soldier. Well, that maxim certainly
applies to the modern world which seems to be full of fake veterans who are
exposed as fantasists who never served in the armed forces. But what about centuries ago when people
were more honest (and no one locked their doors)?
Step forward Auld Dubrach. Peter Grant, known sometimes as Dubrach after
the Aberdeenshire farm he once tenanted, died in 1824, just four years after he
was ‘rediscovered’ as an ancient Jacobite relic and survivor of the Battle of
Culloden at his daughter’s house in Glen Lethnot in Angus. His tombstone in the churchyard of Invercauld
near the castleton of Braemar gives a brief summary of his remarkable life:
† Erected to the memory of Peter Grant, sometime farmer in Dubrach, who died at Auchendryne the 11th of Feb., 1824, aged 110 years. His wife Mary Cumming, died at West-side, parish of Lethnot, in Forfarshire, on the 4th Feby., 1811, aged 65 years, and lies in the churchyard of Lethnot.
Grant, the alleged last combatant Jacobite, lies not far from the farm
of Dubrach (An Dubh-bhruach) in Deeside (where he was born), in the graveyard
at Braemar. His biography runs
as follows. Apprenticed as a weaver and
tailor, Grant took up arms with the rebels in the ’45 uprising (serving in Monaltrie's and Balmoral regiment) and was made a
sergeant following his outstanding bravery at the Battle of
Prestonpans. After the disaster of
Culloden, where he is said to have killed a dozen men, he was captured by
Hanoverian forces and imprisoned at Carlisle Castle, but he somehow managed to
escape by scaling the castle’s walls and he walked all the way back to
Deeside. There he enjoyed a quiet life,
once again employed as a tailor, and in 1763 married Mary (or Marion)
Cumming(s). He is said to have made the cap in which Mary was christened, and
indeed even attended the actual christening. They had six children: sons John, Peter, and William, and daughter
Jean, Annie, plus one other whose name has been lost.
Later Peter Grant tenanted the farm of Dubrach, reputedly the highest
farm in Scotland, until the lease was about to run out. Then he moved with his wife and son John to the
steading of Westside, in Lethnot parish, Angus, where his wife died. Little is known about his initial years in
Angus, but while there he was pleased to greet the new minister, Rev Alex
Symers, whose wife Clementine was a Carnegie of Panbride and related to
Dubrach’s old army commander.
Fame came to the old campaigner in 1820, at the ripe age of 106. Two gentlemen named Smart, who were Montrose
corn merchants, were rambling through
Glen Lethnot in hunting season when they stumbled across this astonishing looking
survivor at his cottage door. Dubrach
invited them into his cottage and regaled them with tales about his Jacobite
past, sung the rebel song ‘Wha Widnae fecht for Charlie’, and swung about his broadsword in an
impressive manner. According to the
account of Andrew Jervise (in Land of the Lindsays):
Interested in the patriarch, one of the gentlemen (Mr George Smart, now in Montrose), waited on the parish minister, and suggested that something might be done for the comfort of Grant, were his history laid before the King. The suggestion was cordially received, and a petition, containing an epitome of his history, was immediately drawn up and signed by Grant himself, as ‘His Majesty’s oldest enemy,’...and being presented to George IV., he was graciously pleased to command that a pension of a guinea a week should immediately be given to old Grant during the remainder of his life, remarking... 'that there was no time to lost in the matter.' But, as was to be expected, the gift did not in the least abate his Jacobite ardour...
The two men were staying with their sister at Drumcairn farm and William
Smart of Cairnbank (near Brechin) interceded with William Maule (1771–1852), who later became Lord Panmure. One version of events states that Maule
presented the king with the petition when he visited Edinburgh in 1822. Part of the supplication reads:
Educated a Roman Catholic, and in all the prejudices of the times, he drew his sword on behalf of another family, and fought with all the energy of a Highlander; but time and experience have corrected his views. Under the mild administration of your royal predecessors, he has seen the nation flourish, and its glory upheld by their wise, able, and vigorous measures. With equal zeal, then, would he gladly draw the sword in defence of that monarch, who now tills the throne, and who he trusts in God, for the good and happiness of his people, will continue to do so for many years to come! But, alas! my royal sire, though the soul of the aged Highlander is still ardent, the frost of age has chilled his vigour. He who in former times had experienced all the luxury of a comfortable independence, is now, in the evening of his age, reduced to poverty and want; for he has not even strength left to travel in search of his daily bread: and to aggravate his distress, to one affectionate daughter, Ann, the only solace of her aged and surviving parent, your petitioner can only bequeath poverty and rags. May it, therefore, please your majesty to take your petitioner’s case into your royal consideration, and to grant such relief as his circumstances may seem to merit; and your petitioner shall ever pray.
An alternative story has the unlikely scenario of the ancient man making
it to Edinburgh himself in August 1822 and encountering the head of the House
of Hanover face to face. According to
this, the king made a friendly gesture by exclaiming,
‘Ah, Grant, you are my oldest friend.’ And Dubrach is reported to have
replied, ‘Na, na,
your majesty, I’m your auldest enemy.’
The delighted king awarded him a pension of 52 guineas.
William Maule commissioned the Brechin born
artist Colvin Smith (1795–1875), R. S. A., to paint
a portrait of Peter Grant, which is now in the National portrait Gallery of
Scotland. It shows an old man to be
sure, but someone who looks a lot younger than a hundred plus years old. Two articles in the
periodical Caledonia (collected in 1895) give details of Auld Dubrach. The
first is by an old lady, above ninety, who remembered Grant at the time he was
having his portrait painted in the studio in Pearce Street, Brechin,
sixty-eight years previously. The sitter
was residing at the time in Airlie Street in the town, in a house belonging to
a joiner named John Chalmers. She often
met Peter Grant and enjoyed having a crack with him. She also visited the ‘neat’ cottage in
Lethnot which he shared with Ann, though she coukld not remember whether Anne
was Dubrach’s sister or wife. (Anne, to
be fair, must have been over sixty at the time.) This article mentions only two children from
the marriage of Mary Cumming and Peter Grant, Peter and Anne, plus then detail
that the family only moved back to Dubrach some time after the marriage.
The first article in Caledonia has Maule
trying to dress up the old veteran in respectable garb, though the old
curmudgeon refused and wore his old fighting apparel before the astonished and
frightened king in Edinburgh. In almost
pantomime fashion the Hanoverian king asked Dubrach, ‘Are you now sorry that
you were so very foolish and disloyal in your young days as to enter the
service of the Pretender?’
King or no king, it was the wrong thing to
say. Dubrach’s eyes flashed with
fire. His chest heaved with emotion.
‘Be ma faith, sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘I wad
fecht for him yet: and yell ne’er be a
man like bonnie Prince Charlie.’
It is almost a pity that such an encounter
did not in fact happen.
The second account in Caledonia is also the
more credible. It mentions the fact that
William Maule was presented to King George IV in Edinburgh on 20th
August 1822, and there is no mention in the comprehensive records of the king’s
visit that the astonishing Dubrach put in an appearance. Furthermore, the writer states that Auld
Dubrach was not a giant of a man as described in other accounts, but rather
small, though still striking in appearance.
Another valid point made in this second account is the supposed fact
that Dubrach still had his ‘genuine’ Highland garb seventy-odd years after
Culloden. Even more remarkably, how did
this blatantly attired rebel escape capture dressed like that all the way back
to Aberdeenshire from Carlisle after his cunning escape? While there is not enough evidence to convince
that Auld Dubrach was a Jacobite fake, some elements of the story he wove about
himself seem open to question.
Another jarring fact about Dubrach is that
he was surprisingly well travelled in his very last years, at a great age, even
though he might not have made it to Edinburgh.
Lord Archibald Campbell, in researching his Records of Argyll in 1883,
asked John Campbell what he knew about Auld Dubrach. John had encountered the old man in the
Glendaruel district in 1822 and had published a piece in the Oban Times about
this. His own father was under-gardener
at Dounans in 1822, and Peter Grant, son of Auld Dubrach was
head-gardener, Shortly after receiving
his pension, the old man visited Peter for some weeks in Argyll and would spend
several hours each day in the Campbell household. John Cambell describes him:
He was about six feet in height, stout and well formed, with small feet but large hands, a fine open brow and dark piercing eyes, and long hair, which hung in curls...and was as white as the snow on his native mountains. The dress he had on him...was the same as that he wore at Culloden...I well remember that he exhibited an air of independence; his spirit would not brook opposition of any kind, and his whole bearing was majestic and heroic-like.
For the servants of the local houses,
Dubrach happily sang and acted out his experiences at Culloden. Interestingly, his performance may have been
inspired or at least enhanced by two books he carried with him. One was a full account of Prince Charlie’s time
in Scotland; the second was a volume of Jacobite rebel ballads. Several letters from John Campbell to Lord
Archibald concentrate on the detail and correctness of the old gentleman’s
Highland dress. He also states that
Dubrach received a warm welcome at Dounans because the Fletcher family who
owned the house were also Roman Catholics and Jacobite sympathisers. The
veteran reacted with explosive rage when a piper played the tune, ‘The Campbells
are Coming’, because it reminded him that so many of that clan fought on behalf
of the Hanoverians.
After Dubrach moved back north from Angus to his native region and the steading of
Dubrach now farmed by his son, his daughter Anne Smith lived on in
Lethnot. Jervise states that she had to
rely on the charity of her neighbours, but she later had her father’s pension
continued to her. Lord Panmure later
built a house for her near the bridge of Lethnot (Bridgend Cottage). But fame and money turned her head and she
became, to herself at least, Lady Anne.
She reluctantly accepted the company of her fellow parishoners,
remarking ‘There’s nae body but the minister’s folk near me worth mindin’, an’
although it be sair against my wull, i doubt I’ll hae to mak them a kind o’ cronies.’ She died in 1840 and was buried alongside
her mother in the kirkyard of Lethnot.
When Dubrach himself died on 11th February
1824, his funeral was attended by upwards of three hundred people, who consumed
over four gallons of whisky. Three
pipers played the Jacobite tune 'Wha Wadna Fecht For Charlie'. A stone
near his grave is inscribed; ‘The old, loyal Jacobite was at peace. He had kept
faith with those whom he thought were his rightful Monarchs all of his life, a
hero and man of honour to the last.’
 |
| Dubrach's grave. |
Dubrach’s son William Grant for a time tenanted the farm his father had occupied and was therefore also known as Dubrach. He appears rather briefly in literature, in his old age, when he was encountered by the father of the author of Oor Ain Folk, walking unsteadily towards him and two friends at Ballater Fair: ‘He was, under certain circumstances, rather a quarrelsome man, and sometime brought no little trouble on his friends by his boastful vauntings and vapourings.’ The three men feared Dubrach would lead them into drinking, then a challenge of strength or combat that would inevitably lead to a fight. So they decided to teach him a lesson by clasping his hand in as strong a handshake as each could muster when he drunkenly accosted them. Up he staggered, ‘with his unkempt hair flaunting in tawny locks over his broad shoulders’. The three men each gripped his hands so mercilessly that his face was contorted in pain by the last greeting and he left them in peace.
But even here, with the son, the Dubrach legend is confused and
contrary. The anonymous writer of the
first account in Caledonia magazine states that the youngest boy,William, was the
son who most resembled his father, although he ‘possessed neither his father’s
piercing eye, nor his force of character, being a quiet,canny man’. Perhaps time and circumstances altered William
Grant of Dubrach considerably.
Whatever truth there was in the legend of Auld Dubrach, he was well
remembered in his own district of Deeside.
Folklorists Calum Maclean and Dr John MacInnes
a local man, John Lamont, in 1959 and he recounted details of the hero as if he
was a current day character.
Sources
Caledonia, A Monthly Magazine of Literature,
Antiquity, and Tradition, Mostly Northern, ed.
Alexander Lowson, Aberdeen,1895, pp. 55-76.
The Calum Maclean Blogspot, http://calumimaclean.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/peter-grant-auld-dubrach-kings-oldest.html
Land of the Lindsays, Andrew Jervise, Edinburgh, 1853, 109-10.
Oor Ain Folk,
James Inglis, Edinburgh, 1894, 75-77.
Records of Argyll, Lord Archibald Campbell, Edinburgh &
London, 1885, 456-462.
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