Stories about my Father - 48
My great-grandmother Jennie was descended from Scottish kings.
I don’t think that she had any idea. Had she known, my father would have heard about it from her, and I would have heard about it growing up. That information would have certainly been part of the family story cycle.
My sister recently gave me a shallow, old typing-paper box of papers she’d gotten from my grandmother. They turned out to be the research my grandmother Eunice had done to prove she was descended from a man named James Hutton who had fought in the American Revolution.
Thirty or forty years ago, the only way to get that information was to dig for it. Eunice had poured through dusty, forgotten books in local libraries and rifled through scattered files in county courthouses. She’d written letters to distant family members asking them for names and dates. Much of what she eventually found had been recorded in cousins’ Bibles. According to her letters, she seems to have done some trading along the lines of I’ll show you my Bible if you show me yours.
It took Eunice several years to firmly establish the connection. The Daughters of the American Revolution were, and still are, as far as I know, sticklers for accuracy. Once she had what she needed to get into the club, she then had to get a notarized statement swearing that the information she was presenting to the D.A.R. was factual and supported. Eunice probably gave my sister the box of her research in case Sue might want to join someday.
I, on the other hand, do not have to go anywhere these days to access long-forgotten files. Through the modern miracle of the internet, I am now privy to documents and genealogical information from all over the world. I have been able to not only trace our lineage back to James Hutton, but I have also found things such as his veteran’s card, the registration of his will, the marriage agreement between him and Hannah Woods, and the deed for the land he held in Augusta County, Virginia. I have also been able to trace his lineage back much further than my grandmother would ever have dreamed was possible.
James Hutton and Hannah Woods are seven generations removed from me. That would make them two of my fifth great-grandparents. Fifteen generations before Hannah Woods, we get to Robert Stewart III, King of Scotland. His father was King Robert II. King Robert II’s parents were Sir Walter Stewart and Marjory Bruce. Marjory was the daughter of Scotland’s greatest King, Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce, therefore, is one of my 23rd great-grandfathers. In case this seems like grandeur, I should remind you that twenty-five generations back, we all have 33,554,432 23rd great-grandparents. Robert the Bruce is only one of that enormous number in my tree
Well, that’s not strictly true. Robert does, in fact, account for quite a few of those 33,554,432. Even with the relatively few, though full, branches, I can account for, I can trace back to Robert fifteen or twenty different ways. It’s called inbreeding, I think.
It’s not that surprising. My Scottish aristocratic ancestors had to do a lot of matchmaking within a very limited population. Robert the Bruce was born in 1274. The total number of people living in what is now Great Britain in the thirteenth century came in at about four and a half million souls. At the time, there was little travel between settlements. In all of Western Europe during that period, there were probably between fifty and a hundred million people. Most of my genetic material comes from that pool.
Michael and I have just spent about two weeks traveling through Western Scotland on the trail of some of these people. He’s been a very good sport about driving for hours to visit yet another ruined castle or abbey. I’m behind the wheel and he passengers. Unless he’s just humoring me, it seems to work.
The initial impulse to come to Scotland was for me to see what McElhinny connections I could find. My mother has always claimed that her family, the McElhinnys, were allowed to wear the MacDougall tartan as they were somehow part of that Clan. The McElhinnys, though, from what I have found so far, were resolutely Irish. That said, there are a lot of McElhinnys living in Argyll and Butte, an area that lies to the west of Glasgow. That’s where we started.
I plotted our path to hit upon spots that I knew were connected to my father’s side of the family. I had zero information about the McElhinnys in Scotland aside from the fact that they had a presence in Argyll. I figured that they would make themselves known as we wandered through the countryside. Until we got to Edinburgh, however, that wasn’t the case. They kept themselves firmly off the radar.
Instead, we found ourselves following in the path of Robert the Bruce from my father’s side.
In Glasgow, there’s an old church in the Govan district. There have been people worshiping on the site since the 5th or 6th century. Even though the Industrial Revolution brought a lot of development to the area, everything grew up around it. Even though there are now buildings hemming it in, the church and its yard are still there. Inside the church, itself, are ancient grave markers, excavated from the yard.
The Vikings had a huge impact on Scotland’s development. As Norsemen raided and took over coastal areas, they intermarried with the local people. Evidence of this remains in contemporary place names and in the influence that they wielded over artistic expression. In the church are several grave markers in the shape of Scandinavian longhouses. Whether or not they marked the burial spot of a Viking, or a Celt is unknowable, but, either way, the Scandinavian stylistic influence had established itself.
I am 88% English and Irish. I am also .6% Scandinavian. Whether that .6% comes from my mother or my father remains to be seen. We should have the results of my mother’s DNA test in a few days. It could come from the Viking raids along the western coast of Ireland in Donnegal which would place it on my mother’s side. It could also come from the Norse presence in Scotland which would likely mean it’s on my father’s side.
The territory around the Govan church was part of what was called the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Govan, in fact, was the center of the Strathclyde which was quite extensive. Strathclyde arose after the Roman Empire pulled back from Britain. This all would have been about a thousand years ago.
Not really knowing where to look for the McElhinnys, the first place Michael and I headed to was Dundonald Castle which I knew had a connection to my father. The present castle sits on top of a craggy hill on top of the remains of a much older hill fort. The older fort, part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, burnt to the ground in about 1000 AD which is when the Kingdom, itself, came to an end.
Scottish history is as confusing as any other history. Everybody has the same name, and they all fought with each other like rabid dogs. Here is my attempt to make some sense of it.
Robert was King of the Scots from 1306 to 1329. He led the forces that opposed England’s King Edward I during the First War of Scottish Independence. He fought alongside William Wallace who was immortalized by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart. Robert the Bruce was the fourth great-grandson of King David I who, in turn, was the grandson of King Duncan of Macbeth fame.
After the first war, Robert led the Scottish forces against a larger English army led by Edward II and also defeated them. It wasn’t until Edward III, though, that a treaty of peace was agreed to, and England renounced its claims over Scotland. Robert the Bruce is considered a Scottish national hero.
While it’s nice to be descended from a Scottish national hero, it turns out that I am also descended from all three English Edwards.
That part of the story is all clear enough, but here’s where it gets tangled. Robert the Bruce did not have a son. It was therefore decided that his younger brother Edward would succeed him. Edward, sadly, was killed in a battle leaving no children. So, the powers that be determined that the line would have to continue down through Robert the Bruce’s daughter Marjory. Marjory had a son named, I am sorry to say, Robert.
Marjory died in a hunting accident when this new younger Robert was still a baby. A few years later, Robert the Bruce finally had a baby boy of his own who he named David. Therefore, when Robert the Bruce died, his son David, who was five, inherited the throne. Robert Stewart, Marjory’s son, essentially ruled Scotland on and off for his Uncle David. David hated him.
So, to sum up: Robert the Bruce has two kids – daughter Marjory and son David. Marjory married Walter Stewart who was High Steward to King Robert the Bruce. The family name Stewart comes from the fact that they had been Stewards for several generations. The d eventually turned into a t.
David was a mess. He tried to invade England and while doing so was captured. After eleven years in the Tower of London, during which Robert Stewart ruled in his name back home, David was finally ransomed with money that had been raised by taxing his people. Instead of paying it back, David just spent it all on himself.
As part of the treaty between Robert the Bruce and Edward III, David, then four years old, was married off to Edward II’s daughter Joan who was seven. David and Joan didn’t have any children so when she died, he married his mistress to create an heir. She didn’t give him one either, so he unsuccessfully tried to divorce her. It never happened. After forty-one years on the throne, David died and his nephew Robert became King Robert II, establishing the House of Stewart.
I will try never to speak of this mishmash again.
Dundonald Castle was built by King Robert II in the 1370s. He lived in it as did his son Robert III. As ancestors, I can trace to both these men as well as to the next four Kings: James I, II, III, and IV. After that, I haven’t yet found any direct paths to their successors.
Robert III wasn’t a very effective ruler, and he knew it. When he died, he asked to be buried in a dung heap as “the worst of kings and most wretched of men.” None of the rest ended well either. A group of men snuck into the unpopular James I’s bed chamber and murdered him. James II was obsessed with guns and was killed when one he was using exploded in his hand. Both James III and James IV were killed in battle.
We went all over Western Scotland, visiting places connected with these people. Many churches and Abbeys were damaged or destroyed during the Scottish Reformation in the 1560s. Some were in ruins; some had been rebuilt. Some, we could go into, and some were maddeningly closed. In a few were the actual memorials to my ancestors, but often they had died so long ago that the locations of their tombs had been forgotten.
Dunfermline Abbey is where most of the remains of Robert the Bruce are buried. During the sacking of the place in the Reformation, the location of Robert’s tomb was lost. In 1818, his skeleton was discovered wrapped in a gold cloth. Before reburying him under the altar of the new church, somebody made a cast of his skull which is very much on display.
There’s an amazing little church on Loch Awe that has an impressive tomb built around a sliver of Robert the Bruce’s bone that a guy named Walter Douglas Campbell managed to get from the skeleton when it was rediscovered.
We also made it to Paisley Abbey where Marjory Bruce and her grandson King Robert III are buried. Robert III can thank Queen Victoria for his memorial. The original monument had been lost. When she visited, she was appalled by the fact that there was nothing to commemorate him and ordered one be built.
Scotland is a beautiful place. We ferried out to Lewis and Harris which are part of the Outer Hebrides Islands. The landscape is wild and fierce. It wasn’t hard to imagine marauding Vikings and battling Scotsmen having at each other in the deep glens and steep mountain keeps. It was strange to know that I was connected to it all, however distantly. I’ve always been drawn to landscapes like that, so it was interesting to find out that the attraction is partially genetic.
We went to Uig on the Isle of Harris where the Lewis chessmen were found. The Lewis chessmen are a set of 12th-century Norse figures. There are 94 of them and are on display at Lews Castle on Lewis, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and at the British Museum in London. I am completely captivated by them. Carved from walrus ivory and whales’ teeth they each have individual faces and personalities.
My mother has always said that the McElhinnys were somehow connected with the MacDougall Clan. This connection gave them the right to wear the MacDougal tartan. I have yet to find any historical references to back this up.
After spending some time looking at the Lewis chessmen on display at the National Museum of Scotland, I came upon a map of where each of the Scottish Clans was located. The MacDougals were in Argyll and Butte, which is exactly where the McElhinnys were supposed to be.
In a case nearby was a piece of jewelry called the Brooch of Lorn. Made to hold a large quartz charmstone, the Brooch of Lorn is reputed to have been taken from Robert the Bruce by a MacDougal during a battle. It is still owned by the Clan.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British government forcibly removed Scottish clans from their ancestral homelands in the Highlands and the islands so that they could graze sheep there instead. Many Scots emigrated to America and Canada, but some went to Ireland. It is possible, I imagine, that the connection between the MacDougals and the McElhinnys may have been established in Ireland instead of Scotland. I’ll have to keep looking.
Jennie Wilson was not the only person in my immediate family descended from Scottish Kings, my father’s father Morris can also trace his lineage back to the same people. My legendary Hester ancestor Buck married a woman named Amy Malone. She goes back to the same people. Both of my father’s parents, therefore, had some common antecedents. I am sure that if I could get back far enough on my mother’s side, her line would end up there as well.
We are really all related in some way. We should all try to remember that.
Another incredible journey, Richard! This would be perfect on a travel/ancestry program. We have one in Australia is SBS ‘Who Do You Think You Are’. Anyway, keep on digging and piecing together and I hope Michael in enjoying the ride.
"Sir Walter Stewart and Marjory Bruce" -- I've watched and rewatched "Outlaw King" enough times that I hit "Marjory" and went FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!