Balrownie - Family History

There isn't really all that much to say about the Balrownie Dempsters at present - a good deal more research needs to be done into the records of Angus.

It appears from the 1592 entail by Thomas Dempster of Auchterless that the Balrownie branch descends from either a younger son of John Dempster of Auchterless and his wife Euphemia Murray, or a son of Walter Dempster and Elizabeth Barclay.¹ The rapid turnover of Auchterless lairds at the time with Walter Dempster dying about a year after his father makes it difficult to tell if Charles Dempster was Walter's brother or his son.

Unlike the senior branch of the family which had basically sold up their lands outside Aberdeenshire, the Balrownie branch is one which appears to have decided to move back to Angus.

The first appearance of a Dempster of Balrownie was in 1527 when Charles Dempster is described as "in Barrane".² If this is the earliest record of Charles, then it makes him most likely a son of Walter Dempster and Elizabeth Barclay, whose eldest son came of age about 1520.

Though the modern spelling of the blace name is Balrownie, the earlier spellings of Barrane and Barony suggest a different pronounciation. The description of Charles Dempster as being in Barrane in 1527 means that he was tenant of the lands rather than owner, the lands actually belonged to the Bishopric of Brechin, with which the Dempsters had connections in previous centuries. In fact it is possible that the lands which Charles received from the Bishop had originally been granted to the Bishopric by earlier Dempsters as the are described in 1585 as being "all within the Barony of Kethik", a property over which there had been disputes between earlier Dempsters and earlier Bishops.

Ownership of the lands came to Charles some time before 1557 when they were alienated to him by John Hepburn, the last Catholic Bishop of the diocese.³

Even before this date, Charles was a fairly substantial figure, being selected as one of the jury for the trial of the Master of Forbes for treason in 1537⁴. This trial was one of the very dubious political trials of the time of James V. The Master of Forbes (heir to Lord Forbes) was accused of attempting to shoot the King, but his real crime was that he was married to a niece of the Earl of Angus, the King's stepfather. King James was out to smash the Red Douglas Earls of Angus in the same way that his great-grandfather James II had smashed the Black Douglases eighty years earlier. The King went about this process ruthlessly, and the Master of Forbes was eventually found guilty. The punishment was to be hanged, drawn, quartered and beheaded, a cruelty that was new to Scotland, having been first inflicted on Lady Glamis a few days earlier. She had the misfortune to be the Earl of Angus' sister and had been accused of witchcraft. Though hanging, drawing and quartering is seen as a typically medieval for of execution, it was in fact a peculiarly English punishment not normally seen in Scotland or the rest of Europe.

One of the two Charles Dempsters was married to Margaret Crawmond, but the date (1557) and the lack of a landed designation for Charles makes it difficult to work out which one.

Charles Dempster I lived to a ripe old age as he is recorded as still being alive at the end of October 1585 when he conveyed the lands of Balrowny, Bellehill and Brach Inche to his son Charles, keeping a life interest for himself⁵. He appears to have died fairly soon after as John Dempster is described as "apparent of Balvuny" on 15th July 1586⁶.

The date of Charles Dempster II's death is unknown, but John was definitely in posession of the estate by 1631.

Whether this family are the ancestors of the Dunnichen and Skibo branches is a very interesting question which has not yet been resolved. The known ancestor of the Dunnichen line is George Dempster, a glover in Brechin in the middle 1600s⁷. His parentage is not known, but it is interesting to note that the Dunnichen line uses the first names Charles and John, as did the Balrownie line. John is too common a name to be of any use, but Charles is relatively uncommon amongst the Dempsters and thus suggests that there may be a connection. The fact that there was a Charles Dempster on the Brechin Burgh Council in 1612 suggests that it could be a possibility⁸. More work needs to be done on the Angus records for this to be proved one way or the other.

Footnotes:

1 Spalding Club: Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen & Banff , iii 570

2 Registrum Secreti Sigilli Regum Scotorum I 1488-1529, 3657

3 Bardgett, F.D.: Dilapidation of Church Property in Angus after 1560, in Innes Review 40, (1989)

4 Pitcairn, R. (ed): Criminal Trials in Scotland from 1488-1624,

5

6 The Register Of The Privy Council Of Scotland Volume IV 1585-1592, 89

7 Burkes Landed Gentry 1937,

8 The Register Of The Privy Council Of Scotland Volume IX 1610-1613, 465

© James Dempster 1997