The Fire of Frendraught is a story so well known in the north east of Scotland as to need no further title. The Fire of Frendraught has to be the murder of John Gordon, Viscount Melgund and John Gordon of Rothiemay by the deliberate burning down of Frendraught Castle in 1630, a deed commemorated in a long ballad of the same name.
The bare details of the story are quite simple. In 1630, a quarrel over the boundaries of their property arose between Sir James Crichton of Frendraught and his neighbour William Gordon of Rothiemay - a meeting to discuss the matter turned into a small skirmish and Rothiemay was mortally wounded. The matter went to court and the King's Lieutenant in the North, the Marquis of Huntly, ordered Crichton to pay 50,000 merks blood money to the heirs of Rothiemay, which was done.
Later in the year Huntly had to adjudge another complaint concerning Crichton, namely that one of his relatives, Robert Crichton had wounded a son of Leslie of Pitcaple, shooting him through the arm. In this case the Marquis found for Crichton, but Pitcaple swore revenge. Fearing Pitcaple's likely actions, Huntly persuaded Crichton to remain at his castle of Bog of Gight (now Gordon Castle) and arranged that his son John, Viscount Melgund and Gordon of Rothiemay should escort Crichton back to Frendraught.
At Frendraught, Melgund and Rothiemay were, in the words of John Spalding, Comissary Clerk of Aberdeen and author of "Memorials of the Trubles in Scotland and England 1624-45"
"well entertained, supped merrily, and went to bed joyfully"
Melgund and his party were lodged in the "old tower" which was connected to the rest of the house by a wooden passage and stair, with Melgund in the first (usually in Scots houses the grandest) floor and with Rothiemay and other guests on the higher floors. Spalding continues
"About midnight this dolorous tower took fire in so sudden and furious a manner, and in ane clap, that noble Viscount, the laird of Rothiemay, English Will, Colonel Ivat, and other servants, were cruelly burned and tormented to death."
The whole country took sides in the aftermath. Some blamed Frendraught whilst others saw Pitcaple behind the incident. A committee of inquiry was set up under the Earl Marischal of Scotland and including the Bishops of Aberdeen and Moray, Lords Ogilvie and Carnegie and Colonel Henry Bruce, and after a visit to Frendraught in 1631 returned a verdict of arson.
Huntly, father of one of the victims as well as Lieutenant in the North, strongly suspected Frendraught, but Sir James defended himself well and in the end John Meldrum, Pitcaple's brother in law, and two of Pitcaple's servants stood trial. Meldrum was hanged.
Success in law was all very well, but Huntly, refused to believe Crichton innocent and quietly gave the nod to the MacGregors, the Camerons, the McDonnels of Glengarry, the McDonnels of Clanranald and the McLachlans, all of whom were to plunder the lands of the Crichtons in the next few years. Such clans could never have got so far east without the tacit co-operation of Huntly, and the Marquis was forced to submit, paying a surety of 100,000 merks for his good behaviour towards Frendraught. Constant troubles instigated by the Gordons, the mistrust of his neighbours (who largely blamed Lady Frendraught) and an active part in the coming civil wars on the royalist side ruined the Crichtons, and within 60 years of the fire all of the lands had gone.
The Dempster part in all this comes in at the Pitcaple end, and though the balladeers and public opinion of the time blamed Crichton - even if the courts did not, the actions of Robert Dempster of Cushnie suggest to me that the Leslies of Pitcaple were more than capable of the crime.
At the time of the fire Robert Dempster of Cushnie was the only surviving son of Thomas Dempster of Auchterless, and he had been heir since the making out of the entail in 1592. What he actually inherited is uncertain. The now largely empty feudal barony of Auchterless-Dempster was his, as were the lands of Cushnie, as both passed eventually by purchase to the Duffs of Hatton, but as for the rest, most had already gone by the time of his father's execution, and Robert Dempster appears to have been reduced to the level of a gentleman hanger-on to various of his relatives.
His appearance in the Frendraught case comes in November 1630. John Meldrum in Reidhall, and Richard Mowat a servant to John Leslie, younger of Pitcaple were examined by the Privy Council
"whairin they have shamefullie varyed and contradicted thameselffes in thair depositions"
As a result of Meldrum and Mowat's contradictory stories, a considerable number of people were ordered to appear before the Privy Council on 23rd December. Robert Dempster was one of them. However, he needed special protection for the next entry is an order to
"all shireffs, stewarts, bailleis of regaliteis and all others of his Majesteis officars"
that they should not arrest Robert for any previous deeds still outstanding.
By March of 1631, Robert Dempster is on the charge sheet as one of the suspects along with John Meldrum of Reidhill, Alexander Leslie of Auquhorsk, Alexander Leslie of Elrick and Patrick Leslie of Legatsden, and they are all granted immunity from arrest for the other crimes for which there were outstanding warrants until the end of June
In July, however this wild bunch of Leslies together with Dempster, a mixed bag of Abercrombies and Gordon of Gight were back to their old habits, being the ringleaders of a group of
"about eight score persons, armed with gunnes, pistolls, jackes, buffil and mailyie coats, steilbonnets and other invasive weapons who came to the Kirktoun of Rayne, where ... John Leith of Harthill was in the minister's house, for the purpose of taking his life, and they would have done so if some noble weomen and ladeis had not interceedit at thair hands to spare him at that tyme"
In September, having heard that Leith intended to take the matter to court, another group, led the the Abercrombies, Captain Leslie of Elrick and Dempster
"armed as aforesaid, and with two captains at the head of their companies with bendit gunnes and pistolets in thair hands came to the complainers' parish kirk and threatened if the compleaners durst be seene in thair deskes to cutt thame in peeces and to banish thame all out of the Garioch"
The Abercrombie versus Leith skirmishing continues throughout most of 1631, the cause apparently being the fact that Adam Abercrombie of Old Rayne had married John Leith of Harthill's mother
In December of 1631, things get more interesting, with one of the main suspects, Richard Mowat, being confronted with Jean Wood, a major witness for the Crichton version of events. My own reading of the evidence I have seen suggests that the whole thing was a farce, with the Crichtons coming off worse in the court, but perversely, the Leslie faction losing in the end.
Jean Wood eventually admitted that her evidence was heresay, being what she had heard from her sister and aunt. What is less clear is whether she had been put up to it be either the Crichtons, or by a faction amongst the Leslies which was trying to shift the blame from Meldrum to Mowat.
Umpteen people claimed to have seen Mowat both on the night of the fire (at Legatsden) and at breakfast the next morning (at Pitcaple), but there evidence all strikes me as too precise. Those who say they saw Mowat at Pitcaple, all place it as between 8am and 10am, and James Anderson's deposition is noted in the Privy Council Register as conforming to that of Patrick Stewart in everything
Robert Dempster is one of those who swore that he saw Mowat at breakfast, and also swears that he slept in the same room as Meldrum at Pitcaple on the night of the fire. Like many commentators since the investigation and trial, I reckon that there was insufficient evidence to have convicted John Meldrum, but I have my doubts about the truthfulness of the evidence on both sides.
Mowat appears to have survived, Meldrum was executed for the crime, and Lady Frendraught punished for it for the rest of her days. This even included excommunication, for the local catholic priests, doing their rounds in secrecy, believed her guilty. The stain of guilt even haunted her after her death, as she became the main villain in a contemporary ballad and in a later more polished, but garbled song, which manages to get the details of the original crime completely the wrong way round, but still condemns Lady Frendraught.
The Fire of Frendraught - the Original Ballad
© James Dempster 1997
