Synopsis
Synopsis
The Jacobite Grants of Urquhart and Glenmoriston:
Their Story in the Rebellion Of 1745
When I was a young boy of about 12 years of age, I first became aware of an incident which had occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden in 1746 which involved a large group of Grants from Urquhart and Glenmoriston who were said to have been betrayed by their own clan Chief. Young and relatively naive as I was this immediately struck me as unusual - given that a Clan Chief was meant to look after his people as they were like his children (the Gaelic meaning of the word clan). I could not comprehend how this could have happened. Although it is difficult to remember my exact thoughts from so long ago, I do remember feeling a strong sense of disappointment that the Grants had sided with the Government. I also remember feeling a further sense of shame that these men could have been treated in such a cruel manner by one who should never have acted against his own. That is where I left it, although I never forgot it.
I was brought up in Grantown on Spey in the Highlands of Scotland. With both sides of my family being Grants it was perhaps only natural that I might grow up with an interest in the history of that family. This grew in my later teens leading to me delving into Grant genealogy. At that time, armed only with my grandfather’s date of birth, I went to the registrar of births and marriages which was then based in a small office in Farraline Park, next to the library in Inverness.
During three visits there, where I received the kind assistance and encouragement of the registrar, I managed to trace my father's side of the family back to the birth of William Grant who was born at Balnain of Lochletter in Glenurquhart in 1824. Unfortunately, there the trail stopped. Quite pleased with myself after my last visit and the result I had just achieved, I went into the reference room in the library next door to spend the hour I had left before I could catch the next bus home. While browsing the history section I came across the story of a family called the Grants of Shewglie who had fought on the Jacobite side in the Rebellion in 1745. They, to my surprise, had lived in Glenurquhart, the place I had just discovered that my ancestor came from. Pleased to have found for the first time that there had at least been some Grants who had fought for the Jacobites, I remember thinking how amazing it would have been if my Grants had involved themselves in this way. I never believed for a moment that they would have, nor that I would ever be able to take my family roots as far back as that. My thoughts then passed to other topics.
After that day, work travels and life got in the way of my pursuing this interest any further. It was not until twenty years later, when I was about to become a father myself, that I thought I should give this another go to see if I could find my way further back into the family tree. This is what I then did. With the help of a friend from New Zealand I managed to find the missing link, namely the father of the above William Grant born in 1824. After finding that man, a DNA test confirmed, to my astonishment and delight, I was descended from the Jacobite Grants of Shewglie, the same men I had so enviously read about in the Inverness Reference Library twenty years previously.
The Jacobite tale, though, does not end there. Within a few years of discovering this link, not only had it come to light that many of my ancestors had been involved in the rebellion, but it transpired that my 7x great grandfather, Alexander Grant 4th of Shewglie, had been the central figure in the betrayal that I had felt ashamed about as a 12-year-old boy. This betrayal had puzzled me ever since. Even to this day, there are not many books written about the rebellion that do not mention this historical puzzle, but whilst it warrants a mention, no detailed explanation for its happening has ever been given, that is, until now.
This book tells the story of the nine members of my family as they fought their way through the course of the 45 Rebellion when they marched to Derby and back with Charles Edward Stuart’s Highland Army. It will then, for the first time, explain the sequence of events which led to the betrayal of these Grants from Loch Ness-side while also exposing the real reasons the head of their Clan sacrificed them by handing them over to the Duke of Cumberland at the end of a conflict which changed the history and culture of the Highlands forever. This was an infamous act which has no equal throughout the long and turbulent history of the Highlands as never before or since had the head of any Clan acted in such a way against his own people.
This book will also tell the fascinating story of what became of the head of the family Alexander Grant of Shewglie following the betrayal of the Urquhart and Glenmoriston men. On the same day that the betrayal occurred in Inverness, Ludovick Grant concluded his business by presenting to the Duke of Cumberland a letter Charles Edward Stuart had sent to Shewglie following the raising of the Royal Standard at Glenfinnan. After reading this, Cumberland immediately ordered that Shewglie be arrested on a charge of high treason. Shewglie was arrested and sent to Tilbury Fort on the River Thames. However, soon after his arrival there events took an unexpected twist when he was released from his cell through the influence of some of the leading Hanoverian men in Britain. Lord President Duncan Forbes of Culloden had orchestrated this with the assistance of Hew Dalrymple, Lord of the Scottish Judiciary, and John Dalrymple, the Earl of Stair, who, as Commander in Chief of Land Forces in England had been largely responsible for the defence of Britain throughout the course of the Rebellion. The Earl of Stair, also a renowned European diplomat, provided legal representation for Shewglie and negotiated on his behalf with the Secretary of State, Thomas Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle, to successfully bring about his release. What led these hugely influential Hanoverians to support the release of the fervent and known Jacobite, Alexander Grant of Shewglie, which went against the expressed wishes of the Duke of Cumberland?
By using many never previously published letters this book will also prove in detail that the history books, which have invariably presented the Clan Grant as a unified, Hanoverian-supporting Clan during the 1745 Rebellion, have been incorrect. The truth is that the majority of the Grants in Strathspey with the exception of their Chief and his inner circle, were Jacobites at heart.
Finally, this book tells the story of the Shewglie Grants in the decades that followed Culloden when many of them joined the ranks of the Honourable East India Company and played commanding roles in the Battles of Plassey and Buxar. Victories at these places created the foundation for the Company’s domination of India over the following 200 years. Its youngest son, born just before Culloden, eclipsed the significant achievements of those who had gone before him by becoming the Chairman and Director of the East India Company when it was at the very height of its power. Others joined the famous 42nd Regiment, the Black Watch, fighting their way through the French and Indian Wars, the American War of Independence and the Texas Revolution during which one of them was accused of stripping the Alamo of men and supplies shortly before it fell to the forces of General Santa Anna, who personally ordered that man’s capture and death. From Culloden to Calcutta and over the sea to America, the story of the Grants of Shewglie is a microcosm of the British Empire itself and the prominent part many Scots played in its formation.