BUCHANAN - HISTORY OF SURNAME

Entry in History of Scotland - Eminent Families page 2

Sir Maurice Buchanan, grandson of Gilbert, and son of a chief of the same name, received from Donald earl of Lennox; a charter of the lands of Sailoehy, with confirmation of the upper part of the carucate of Buchanan. As his name does not appear on the roll of parties who swore fealty to Ed-ward the First, his descendants claim the merit of his having refused to do so. To the bond of fealty, however; a Malcolm de Buchanan attached his name. Sir Maurice also obtained a charter of confirmation of the lands of Buchanan from King David the Second in the beginning of his reign.

Allan, the second son of the first Sir Maurice, married the heiress of Leny of that ilk, descended from Gillespie Muir de Lany, supposed to have lived about the beginning of the tenth century. According to a family manuscript pedigree, quoted in Buchanan of Auchmar's account of the Leny branch, the early proprietors of the estate of Leny had no charter, but carefully preserved a large sword, and one of the teeth of St. Fillan, the possession of which was held to be a sufficient title to the lands. John, the third son, was always reputed the ancestor of the Buchanans of Auchneiven.

Sir Maurice de Buchanan the second, above mentioned, married a daughter of Menteith of Rusky, and had a son, Walter do Buchanan, who had a charter of confirmation of some of his lands of Buchanan from Robert the Second, in which he is designed the king's 'consanguineous,' or cousin. His eldest son, John, married Janet, daughter and sole heiress of John Buchanan of Lany, fourth in descent from Allan already noticed. John, who died before his father, had three sons, viz. Sir Alexander, of whom next paragraph; Walter, who succeeded his father; and John, who inherited the lands of Lany, and carried on that family.

Sir Alexander Buchanan, the eldest son, accompanied the earl of Buchan to France, when be went to assist the French king Charles against Henry the Fifth of England, and distinguished himself at the battle of Beaungi in Normandy, in March 1421. The victory was principally owing to the valour of the Scots auxillaries It is stated in Buchanan of Auchmar's account of the martial achievements of the family of Buchanan that it was Sir Alexander Buchanan who, in this battle, slew the duke of Clarence, a feat commonly attributed to the earl of Buchan. lie is said to have pierced the duke through the left eye and brain, en which the latter fell, when seizing his coronet, Buchanan bore it off on his spearpoint. He is also said to have sold the coronet, which was set round with jewels, to Stewart of Darnley for one thou-sand angels of gold, and that the latter pawned the same to Sir Robert Houston for five thousand angels. Sir Alexander Buchanan was killed at the battle of Verneull, on the 17th of August of the same year.

The armorial bearings of the Buchanans lend countenance to the assertion that Sir Alexander Buchanan assisted in slaying the duke of Clarence. The crest is a hand holding a ducal crown. The double tressurs with fleurs de lis was granted to him by the king of France. The mottoes "Audaces Juvo," and "Clarior Hine Honos;" are correspondent to each other and to the devices.

Sir Alexander died unmarried, and the second son, Sir Walter, succeeded to the estate of Buchanan.

This Sir Walter do Buchanan married Isabel, daughter of Murduch, duke of Albany, governor of Scotland, by Isabel, countess of Lennox in her own right. With a daughter, married to Gray of Foulis, ancestor of Lord Gray, he had three sons, viz. Patrick, his successor; Maurice, treasurer to the princess Margaret, the daughter of Ring James the First, and dauphiness of France, with whom he left Scotland; and Thomas founder of the Buchanans of Carbeth.

The eldest son, Patrick, acquired a part of Strathyre is 1455, and had a charter under the great seal of his estate of Buchanan dated in 1460. He and Andrew Buchanan of Leny made in 1455 mutual tailzies of their estates in favour of one another, and the heirs of their own bodies, passing some of their brethren of either side. He married Gaibraith, heiress of Killearn, Bamore, and Auchenreoch. He had two sons and a daughter, Anabella married to her cousin, James Stewart of Baldorrans, grandson of Murdoch, duke of Albany

Their younger son, Thomas Buchanan, was, in 1482, founder of the house of Drumakill, whence, in the third generation, cams the celebrated George Buchanan. One of Sir Walter Scott's colleagues at the clerk's table of the court of session was Hector Macdonald Buchanan, Esq. of Drumakill, "a frankhearted and generous gentleman," says Lockhart, "not the less acceptable to Scott for the Highland prejudices which he inherited with the high blood of Clanranald; at whose beautiful seat of Ross priory, on the shores of Loch Lomond, he was almost annually a visitor; a circumstance which has left many traces in the Waverley novels,"

Patrick's elder , Walter Buchanan of that ilk, married a daughter of Lord Graham, and by her had two sons, Patrick and John, and two daughters, one of them married to the laird of Lamond, and the other to the laird of Ardkinglass.

John Buchanan, the younger son, oucoeeded by testament to Menzies of Arnprior, and was the facetious "King of Kippen," and faithful ally of James the Fifth. The local proverb, "Out of the world, and into Kippen," was meant to show the seclusion and singularity of this district of Stirlingshire, of which the feudal lord was formerly styled King. The name is supposed to be derived from the Gaelic word Ceap-beino, 'foot of the mountain,' and the parish is partly in Penbohire. An insulated portion of the latter county, about two miles long and half-a-mile broad, embraces the village of Kippen. The minister's manse stands on the east-em boundary, so that his dinner is cooked in Perthshire and eaten in Stirlingshire. The way in which the laird of Arnprior got the name of" King of Kippen" is thus related by a tradition which Sir Walter Scott has introduced into his Tales of a Grandfather. ( History of Scotland.) -" When James the Fifth travelled in disguise, he used a name which was known only to some of his principal nobility and attendants, He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of Ballengeich. Ballengeich is a steep pass which leads down behind the castle of Stirling. Once upon a time when the court was feasting in Stirling, the king sent for some venison from the neighbouring hills. The deer was killed and put on horses' backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily they had to pass the castle gates of Amprior, belonging to a chief of the Buchanans, who chanced to have a considerable number of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather short of victuals, though they had more than enough of liquor. The chief; seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, seized on it, and to the expostulations of the keepers, who told him it belonged to King James, he answered insolently. that if James was king in Scotland, he (Buchanan) was Icing in Kippen; being the name of the district in which Arnprior lay. On hearing what had happened the king got on horseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buchanan's house, where he found a strong fierce-looking Highlander, with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. This grim warder refused the king admittance, saying that the laird of Arnprior was at dinner, and would not be disturbed. 'Yet go up to the company, my good friend,' said the king, 'and tell him that the Goodman of Ballengeich is come to feast with the King of Kippen.'


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Tom Paterson
(last updated 20th Oct '97)