0:00:02 > 0:00:05Edinburgh Castle, November, 1715,
0:00:05 > 0:00:09just a few days after the Battle of Sherriffmuir,
0:00:09 > 0:00:13a bloody encounter that left 600 Jacobite rebels dead.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18Charged with treason, many survivors were now prisoners in the Castle.
0:00:18 > 0:00:24On his way to join them was one of the most notorious Jacobites of all time.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28He was about to receive a visitor.
0:00:28 > 0:00:34In disguise, and using an assumed name, a woman made her way to the guardhouse.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37In one hand she carried a purse of gold
0:00:37 > 0:00:40and in the other a flagon of claret. Her mission?
0:00:40 > 0:00:43To affect the escape of her brother.
0:00:43 > 0:00:47In an episode that reads more like farce than history,
0:00:47 > 0:00:50she got the guard so drunk that her brother,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Alexander Struan Robertson,
0:00:52 > 0:00:57the 13th Chief of Clan Donnachaidh, made his escape.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01In this series I'm going on a personal journey to reveal
0:01:01 > 0:01:06the extraordinary stories behind the great clan names of Scotland.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11For centuries, clans have blended myth and reality to proclaim their greatness,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14and none more so than Clan Robertson.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31The Robertsons are also known as Clan Donnachaidh
0:01:31 > 0:01:34and these are their ancestral lands.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37A beautiful country steeped in legend and folklore
0:01:37 > 0:01:43where Robertson Chiefs have traditionally taken their title from a place called Struan,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46which means in Gaelic, the meeting of streams.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50Alexander Robertson of Struan,
0:01:50 > 0:01:55the last and perhaps the greatest of all the old Robertson Chiefs
0:01:55 > 0:01:56was born here in 1670.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01A legend in his own lifetime, this poet, misogynist and celebrated drinker
0:02:01 > 0:02:06was the only man to have fought in the three great Jacobite Rebellions
0:02:06 > 0:02:08of the 17th and 18th centuries.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12He was quite an intellectual figure.
0:02:12 > 0:02:17He wrote poetry, some of which was extreme religious verse,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19others were totally erotic verse.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23He was very partial, particularly in writing the latter poetry,
0:02:23 > 0:02:26to be fairly well charged with drink at the time,
0:02:26 > 0:02:29he was a notorious social or severely social drinker,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32and in current day parlance he really was a Scottish head banger.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39Alexander Robertson modelled himself on the chiefs of old.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42As a self styled keeper of the Jacobite flame,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45upholding ancient Highland values
0:02:45 > 0:02:47based on honour and ancestry,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50he lived in an appropriately remote setting,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54a place without roads, isolated from the rest of the world.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59On the hill behind me is the site of Dunalastair,
0:02:59 > 0:03:06Mount Alexander, the great villa that Alexander Robertson of Struan designed and built for himself.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10This was his hideaway, this was his hermitage,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14a place where he could let his imagination run riot,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17a place that inspired him to verse.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24Expand thy gates thou blessed abode,
0:03:24 > 0:03:27thy long neglected cells repair,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30confess the bounteous care of God,
0:03:30 > 0:03:32our streabhon breathes his native air.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41Today there is nothing left of Dunalastair, the home that Alexander celebrated in verse.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45In the now overgrown gardens, I met up with James Irvine Robertson,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49who's written about the man who became known as the Poet Chief.
0:03:49 > 0:03:55So James we've come just about as close as it's possible to get to the original site of Dunalastair,
0:03:55 > 0:03:59the hermitage that meant such a lot to Alexander Robertson of Struan.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02It was a place that really inspired him, was it not?
0:04:02 > 0:04:06He certainly wrote poems about it, and he wrote a poem when he left it
0:04:06 > 0:04:10regretting it, mourning it's loss and wrote another poem when he came back,
0:04:10 > 0:04:14an exultant poem with all these birds and his beasts, and his insects
0:04:14 > 0:04:16and his friends all round him again,
0:04:16 > 0:04:20so I think it meant a huge amount to him, this is where his heart certainly was.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23He was interested in nature but of course he was more than that,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26he was a larger than life character, was he not?
0:04:26 > 0:04:29Very much so, and he was also a very convivial man,
0:04:29 > 0:04:32he was great company and people travelled a long way
0:04:32 > 0:04:36in order to come here and enjoy his drink, and his company.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39The only thing they couldn't enjoy here was women.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41He actually put a sign just down the road here,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44in the front of his... on the gates of his house,
0:04:44 > 0:04:46forbidding women to enter.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Being him, he made it a little poem, but women never came here
0:04:49 > 0:04:52so it was very much a bachelor establishment,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54fuelled by lots and lots of brandy
0:04:54 > 0:04:56and good conversation, and a lot of humour.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01As a chief steeped in Highland tradition,
0:05:01 > 0:05:08Alexander understood the importance of ancestry to the status and reputation of the clan.
0:05:08 > 0:05:14To boost the prestige of the Robertsons, he embarked on a project that glorified their past.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18In so doing he re-wrote the history of the clan.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28I've come to Blair Castle in the heart of Robertson country
0:05:28 > 0:05:32where men from the clan are among the ranks of the Atholl Highlanders.
0:05:32 > 0:05:38This ceremonial army is a modern reminder of the fighting traditions that were first celebrated
0:05:38 > 0:05:43in a near mythical document setting out the ancient lineage of the clan.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48The earliest written account of Clan Donnachaidh is known as the Red Book.
0:05:48 > 0:05:54Unfortunately the only copy was burned in a fire back in the 1600's.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Now Alexander Robertson of Struan
0:05:56 > 0:05:59did his best to have the history re-written
0:05:59 > 0:06:04and commissioned his great, great Uncle John to write it from memory.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Uncle John's imaginative version of Robertson history
0:06:08 > 0:06:13aggrandised the clan with tall tales of heroic ancestors.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17Genealogy is fundamentally important to clan historians
0:06:17 > 0:06:21cos in a way what genealogy does is root you somewhere
0:06:21 > 0:06:22that you want to be rooted,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25and they have no compunction about making it up.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Unlike, you know, genealogy today
0:06:27 > 0:06:30is the finding out where you individually came from,
0:06:30 > 0:06:34this is about placing a family there and saying to the world,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38we've always been here and that's our credentials to still be here.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Alexander's Red Book mythologises the past
0:06:43 > 0:06:46with accounts of heroic ancestors.
0:06:46 > 0:06:52Through their noble deeds the clan lay claim to its territory.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57According to the Red Book the first hero Chief was Duncan or Donnachaidh in Gaelic.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Duncan not only gave his name to Clan Donnachaidh,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04he also found the beautiful and mysterious Clach na Bratach.
0:07:04 > 0:07:09Today this heirloom of the Chiefs, an ancient quartz crystal ball
0:07:09 > 0:07:13is in the Clan Museum where I met Ron Greer.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18So, Ron, this must be the famous Clach na Bratach.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20It is indeed the famous Clach na Bratach.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23A crystal ball, it's a pure crystal ball found,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27on the eve of one of the many battles between clan Donnachaidh
0:07:27 > 0:07:31and their inveterate enemies the Clan McDougall,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34and legend has it that Duncan the Stout put his flag pole...
0:07:34 > 0:07:38the Bratach, the Clach na Bratach means the stone of the flag pole,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41so he put his clan banner pole in the ground
0:07:41 > 0:07:45and when he retrieved the banner pole the following morning,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48lo and behold here was the rock crystal,
0:07:48 > 0:07:50the crystal ball lying there in the turf
0:07:50 > 0:07:54and this was the, the wee magic stane of Clan Donnachaidh
0:07:54 > 0:07:58and to have such a remarkable discovery of this magical stone
0:07:58 > 0:08:01was considered a great portent of good for the clan
0:08:01 > 0:08:06and 400 years the clan prospered after Duncan the Stout found this on the eve of the battle,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09so quite a magical event altogether.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12So you're talking about magic, but this is Christian Scotland,
0:08:12 > 0:08:14is that not just a wee bit of a contradiction?
0:08:14 > 0:08:18Yes, well although the Highland Society was nominally Christian
0:08:18 > 0:08:22at the time, they're much older pagan traditions had still carried on,
0:08:22 > 0:08:28you know, the pagan mentality hadn't died out, so the Stone and the Chief went together,
0:08:28 > 0:08:33and the power of the Chief and the stone, was considered important for healing.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39The Chief would hold the, the stone in his hand, he would put it into a bowl of water
0:08:39 > 0:08:43and that water was used for healing sick people and indeed sick animals,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46so it's the magic of the stone and the magic of the Chief,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49it's all intertwined in that tradition.
0:08:49 > 0:08:56When Alexander consulted the stone before the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, the omens were bad.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59A deep crack had appeared,
0:08:59 > 0:09:03but centuries earlier, luck had been on the side of his ancestors
0:09:03 > 0:09:07when they threw their support behind Robert the Bruce.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11Tradition tells of how the clan sheltered the would-be King
0:09:11 > 0:09:16in their Highland fastness, and fought off his English pursuers.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20According to legend, somewhere down there in the murky depths
0:09:20 > 0:09:23is the drowned battlefield of Dalchosnie
0:09:23 > 0:09:27where the men of Clan Donnachaidh notched up a surprising victory against the English.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Now the English had come in pursuit of Robert the Bruce
0:09:31 > 0:09:37and were stopped by the clan and for a while it looked as if victory would go to the English,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40until the women of Clan Donnachaidh charged.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43They filled up their stockings with heavy stones,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47wielded them like clubs and smashed the heads of their enemies.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55If the connection with Robert the Bruce claimed by Alexander,
0:09:55 > 0:10:02is suspect or even imaginary, then their role in the fate of another King is more tangible
0:10:02 > 0:10:06and gave Clan Donnachaidh the name we know them by today.
0:10:06 > 0:10:12It was Christmas time, 1437 and King James I of Scotland, his Queen,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15their baby son and the rest of the Royal household
0:10:15 > 0:10:19was staying at the Dominican Priory here in Perth.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24The sight of the Royal residence has long gone,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27and is now covered by the modern city,
0:10:27 > 0:10:32but it was here that King James, who had many political enemies,
0:10:32 > 0:10:34indulged his passion for tennis,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38an innocent pastime with fatal consequences.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41James, although he was very portly by this point,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44did still like his game of tennis
0:10:44 > 0:10:50and he used to get very annoyed because the balls kept rolling down into the cellar
0:10:50 > 0:10:52so he ordered it to be blocked up.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54By blocking up the cellar,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58which in turn was connected to a system of underground drains,
0:10:58 > 0:11:04the King unwittingly signed his own death warrant when unwelcome visitors came to call.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10Late one evening a group of assassins broke into the Royal Apartments.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Now the women of the household were able to bar the door
0:11:13 > 0:11:17just long enough for the King to make his escape through a hatchway
0:11:17 > 0:11:19in the floor that led to the drain.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22Now unfortunately because the drain had been blocked,
0:11:22 > 0:11:26his pursuers trapped him there and hacked him to death.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34The King's assassins fled north.
0:11:34 > 0:11:40According to tradition, Alexander's ancestor the Chief Robert Riabhach hunted them down.
0:11:44 > 0:11:49As a reward, Robert Riabhach was given charters to a huge territory,
0:11:49 > 0:11:54and a coat of arms symbolising his role in avenging the Crown.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59And in his honour, his heirs took the name Robertson,
0:11:59 > 0:12:03the name the clan has been known by ever since.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07The clan was now at the peak of its power and influence,
0:12:07 > 0:12:11but Robert's successors squandered his legacy.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13By the end of the 17th century
0:12:13 > 0:12:20the Robertson's of Struan no longer controlled the lands they once occupied.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25In 1689, Alexander Robertson became the 13th Chief.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28At the time he was a student at St Andrews
0:12:28 > 0:12:32and was acutely aware of his clan's noble ancestry.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37Motivated by romantic ideals and a sense of Highland honour,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41Alexander set out to restore glory to his clan.
0:12:41 > 0:12:48He saw himself as representing a heroic tradition,
0:12:48 > 0:12:54a Scottish tradition and a tradition of loyalty, resistance and struggle.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00Alexander got the chance to prove himself in 1688
0:13:00 > 0:13:05when Parliament deposed the Stuart King, James VII
0:13:05 > 0:13:09because of his Catholicism and replaced him with his son-in-law,
0:13:09 > 0:13:13the Protestant Dutch King William of Orange.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16This triggered a civil war between the supporters of James,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19the Jacobites and the Government.
0:13:19 > 0:13:25Alexander was an impressionable 18-year-old student here at St Andrews University
0:13:25 > 0:13:27when rebellion broke out.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31Now it's perhaps ironic for a man whose later reputation was founded
0:13:31 > 0:13:38on all kinds of excess, but he was at the time a student of divinity.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Now perhaps this explains his instinct for knowing
0:13:41 > 0:13:44which was the side of God and the angels.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54The teenage chief hurried to join the Jacobite Rebellion,
0:13:54 > 0:14:01but the Rising's inspirational leader was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03In the messy aftermath,
0:14:03 > 0:14:09Alexander was captured and held in Edinburgh Castle, but not for long.
0:14:09 > 0:14:10His charm was such
0:14:10 > 0:14:11that the Duke of Argyll
0:14:11 > 0:14:15who was obviously the very important on the Government side,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17was charmed by Alexander.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20The Duke of Hamilton was charmed by young Alexander.
0:14:20 > 0:14:21They released him.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24"You will be good in future, won't you?". "Of course I will."
0:14:24 > 0:14:29You will be good in future and from there he just got on a ship and sailed straight to France
0:14:29 > 0:14:32and joined the Court of the exiled King James.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35As a patriotic exile,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39Alexander continued his war against the Government,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42but in the absence of actual hostilities,
0:14:42 > 0:14:47he turned his mind and his pen to making verbal assaults
0:14:47 > 0:14:49against King William of Orange.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55Poetry was his weapon, imagination his ammunition.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58Sarah Kirkton has studied Alexander's work.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01I met her at the National Library in Edinburgh,
0:15:01 > 0:15:05where she showed me how his body and sometimes obscene verse
0:15:05 > 0:15:08compared the exiled Stuart King James
0:15:08 > 0:15:11with the less than virile William of Orange.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14"William, the other un-performing puny prig
0:15:14 > 0:15:18"could only with his page retire and frig."
0:15:18 > 0:15:21- Now this was common gossip.- Right.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26That William was more interested in the boys than the girls and that's why he didn't produce an heir.
0:15:26 > 0:15:33There's another poem here which is more explicit still.
0:15:33 > 0:15:38"This is an ode inscribed to King... W...
0:15:38 > 0:15:43"To King William and Alexis lay with Corydon."
0:15:43 > 0:15:50Alexis is a boy, Corydon is the name he gives to King William.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53"So these two lie under, in the oak grove,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57"getting down to business and they very definitely do."
0:15:57 > 0:16:00"They were tuning their pipes and then playing them good and hard."
0:16:00 > 0:16:05The satire continues with similar robust imagery,
0:16:05 > 0:16:09and impugns the sexuality of William's Queen, Mary.
0:16:09 > 0:16:15It seems that what Alexander is saying is that the whole regime, the whole William and Mary regime
0:16:15 > 0:16:17is corrupt and rotten to the core,
0:16:17 > 0:16:20because somehow it's upset the natural order of things.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Yes, the whole thing is going to hell in a hand cart.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25He's lying with boys, she's lying with girls.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27This is not what you expect from your ruler.
0:16:27 > 0:16:33But there's, there is an obviously irony here though Sarah, because Alexander is attacking William
0:16:33 > 0:16:35because he can't product an heir,
0:16:35 > 0:16:37but Alexander himself doesn't produce an heir.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42Yes. The whole logic of clanship
0:16:42 > 0:16:46is this ancestor worship.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49You worship your ancestors and their blood is in you,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52therefore they are in you, so those great marshall,
0:16:52 > 0:16:57virile, protective qualities you worship in your ancestors are in you,
0:16:57 > 0:17:02and you reproduce and pass them on to your child,
0:17:02 > 0:17:04so in not doing that,
0:17:04 > 0:17:08you betray the heart of clanship and its values.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13Perhaps Alexander's vitriol against William was fuelled
0:17:13 > 0:17:17by a sense of personal failure in not producing his own heir.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22In Alexander's eyes they had both betrayed their ancestors.
0:17:22 > 0:17:28When the childless King William died, the Crown passed to Queen Anne.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31She was the daughter of the exiled Stuart King
0:17:31 > 0:17:36and was keen to pardon many of the rebels who'd supported her father.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41After 13 years in exile, Alexander Robertson came home.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48The remote setting of Dunalastair not only inspired Alexander's mind
0:17:48 > 0:17:55to poetry, it was also an ideal place to entertain friends and fellow Jacobites.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59Here he plied them with prodigious amounts of alcohol.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Struan drank exceptionally heavily.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05Everybody who visited him agreed with that, and he would often drink one
0:18:05 > 0:18:09sort of spirits, brandy for breakfast and whisky for lunch.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13The story goes that he had a bed in the corner of his room
0:18:13 > 0:18:17in which he was wont to spend the morning after
0:18:17 > 0:18:20his breakfast imbibings, let alone that of the night before.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26If drink fuelled Alexander's Jacobite fervour,
0:18:26 > 0:18:31it also fuelled his hope of a Stuart succession through Queen Anne,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34but none of Anne's 17 children survived
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and she died without an heir.
0:18:37 > 0:18:42When the Government chose the German, George of Hanover as the next monarch,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45there was a wave of outrage in the Highlands,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48culminating in the second major Jacobite rebellion.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51The decisive battle of the rebellion
0:18:51 > 0:18:54took place up in the wilds of Sheriffmuir
0:18:54 > 0:18:56on the 18th of November, 1715.
0:18:56 > 0:19:00Alexander Robertson of Struan was on the field that day
0:19:00 > 0:19:02leading 500 men of Clan Donnachaidh,
0:19:02 > 0:19:07making the Robertson's one of the biggest contingents of the Jacobite Army.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10Now they took up positions on the left wing.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13There were 7,000 Jacobites on the field
0:19:13 > 0:19:18facing a much smaller force of just over 3,000 Government troops,
0:19:18 > 0:19:24but the chance for a decisive victory for the supporters of the Stuart Kings was squandered.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31Today much of the battlefield is covered by dense forestry
0:19:31 > 0:19:35making it difficult to picture the conflict that took place here.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37To avoid the mud and the rain,
0:19:37 > 0:19:42I met battlefield archaeologist Tony Pollard at a local hostelry.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46In 2004, Tony led the only archaeological excavation
0:19:46 > 0:19:50to have been carried out on the battlefield site.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53Now Tony, as an archaeologist you found some bits and pieces
0:19:53 > 0:19:56left over from the battle. What, what have we got here?
0:19:56 > 0:19:58Yes, we did some work here quite quite recently
0:19:58 > 0:20:02and what we discovered for the first time is exactly where the armies were.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05There's been a lot of controversy about where they'd lined up,
0:20:05 > 0:20:07and for the first time we managed to do that
0:20:07 > 0:20:10by doing the archaeological survey and we found quite a lot of musket balls
0:20:10 > 0:20:15and, as you can see, they come, variety of sizes.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17- This small one here is probably a pistol ball.- Right.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21I think probably given its size, fired from a Jacobite pistol.
0:20:21 > 0:20:22It's quite heavy still, nonetheless.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27They, they are, even, despite its size it would, it would not pay to be hit by it,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30but as you can see some of them are somewhat larger.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34- Yes.- This, this is probably from a Jacobite musket cos it's a French calibre
0:20:34 > 0:20:37and a lot of the Jacobites were using French weaponry.
0:20:37 > 0:20:43- These as you can see are slightly larger and these are probably fired from Government muskets.- Right.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45And they've all got little indentations
0:20:45 > 0:20:49and we don't know whether these killed men or missed them.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53But they are a very visceral reminder of what happened here in 1715.
0:20:53 > 0:20:58Now I understand that Alexander Robertson of Struan had a narrow escape as well, did he not?
0:20:58 > 0:21:04He did indeed. The Robertson's were in the second line of the Jacobite position
0:21:04 > 0:21:06and he finds himself advanced of his men so his guys,
0:21:06 > 0:21:10his guys are behind him, his clan's behind him and he's out in the open exposed,
0:21:10 > 0:21:15and it's not an unusual circumstance from Jacobite warfare, there are numerous stories of this,
0:21:15 > 0:21:17to some degree due to impetuous officers,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20so he might have been somewhat over keen,
0:21:20 > 0:21:26and what happens is that a Government Dragoon on his horse comes along and captures him
0:21:26 > 0:21:31and insists that Robertson hand him his purse, which he is just about to do,
0:21:31 > 0:21:38but then his men realise that he's in trouble and rush back up, and grab him back and rescue him
0:21:38 > 0:21:43just before he can hand over the purse and the, the Dragoon is somewhat aggrieved at this,
0:21:43 > 0:21:46at being robbed of his booty, and shouts back,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48"That purse is rightly mine"
0:21:48 > 0:21:52and for some reason Robertson seems to have had a rather old fashioned sense of honour
0:21:52 > 0:21:56and agreed with him and after the battle he finds out the guy,
0:21:56 > 0:22:02I don't know how he did this, but finds his address in Carlisle and posts him the purse.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07Because he did feel it was his by rights, so it's one of those strange little stories
0:22:07 > 0:22:09which has probably been added to over time,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13but it does give some flavour of the complicated issue here,
0:22:13 > 0:22:17it's not a straightforward war and it's not a straightforward battle.
0:22:20 > 0:22:26For Alexander, the dream of a Stuart restoration evaporated in the confusion of battle,
0:22:26 > 0:22:30which left the Jacobites unable to press home their tactical advantage.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35Aged 45, he returned to French exile,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38but he never lost faith with the cause
0:22:38 > 0:22:43and continued to lambaste the Government with his poems.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47But in 1725, George II came to the throne.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52To make peace with the Jacobites the new King offered them a pardon.
0:22:52 > 0:22:57Now in his mid 50's, this was Alexander's chance to come home.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01The Hanoverian Dynasty had only come in in 1714.
0:23:01 > 0:23:06As a new Dynasty they sought to try and gain greater acceptance,
0:23:06 > 0:23:11so therefore they were prepared to be lenient in their treatment of the Jacobites.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Robertson of Struan was one of the Chiefs who was prepared
0:23:15 > 0:23:18to take the Government at its face value.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Whatever they might have felt in their heart,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25whatever they might have felt their allegiances should have been,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29the reality was that the Hanoverian Government was well and truly in charge.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32They had to bend with the wind.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36The Government may have had the upper hand,
0:23:36 > 0:23:40but Alexander could still charm the toughest characters.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44The Hanoverian Government's strong man in Scotland was General Wade,
0:23:44 > 0:23:48the scourge of Highland Jacobites everywhere.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52It was through the person of this formidable soldier
0:23:52 > 0:23:54that Alexander hoped to receive his pardon.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58Wade had been sent north to subdue the clans.
0:23:58 > 0:24:03His strategy involved the construction of a network of roads and bridges
0:24:03 > 0:24:07to enable Government troops swift access to rebel country.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10But despite his hostile mission,
0:24:10 > 0:24:15Wade seems to have been well regarded by many of his former enemies.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19Wade I think is one of the great heroes of Scottish Highland history.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23He was a man of huge charm, a very big man,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27and what was most important among the chiefs at the time,
0:24:27 > 0:24:29he could drink as much claret as they could.
0:24:29 > 0:24:36Alexander was due to meet Wade in person to receive his Royal Pardon,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39but on the way he met a company of friends.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43A party ensued at which a few drinks were taken.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46The revelries lasted for a whole week.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50When Alexander continued his journey and eventually met Wade,
0:24:50 > 0:24:52the General, quite understandably,
0:24:52 > 0:24:56asked how he could have been so careless on a matter of such importance.
0:24:56 > 0:25:02The story goes that Alexander's disarmingly polite answer won the General over.
0:25:02 > 0:25:08He said, "I felt my Pardon was as safe in your hands as it would have been in mine."
0:25:12 > 0:25:15Alexander may have been friends with the General,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19but he still harboured Jacobite loyalties
0:25:19 > 0:25:23and continued to plot the return of the exiled Stuart Kings.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27In 1745, the dream promised to become reality
0:25:27 > 0:25:33when Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland and started a rebellion.
0:25:33 > 0:25:40This was the moment that Alexander Robertson of Struan had been waiting for all his adult life.
0:25:40 > 0:25:47Although he was now in his 76th year, he raised the clan and hurried to meet the Prince.
0:25:50 > 0:25:56The aged Chief followed the Jacobite Army on its victorious progress to Edinburgh
0:25:56 > 0:25:59and later watched as their infamous Highland charge
0:25:59 > 0:26:05routed General Copes' Government troops at the Battle of Prestonpans.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08But it was all too much for Alexander.
0:26:08 > 0:26:14The infirmities of age and the complications of alcohol forced him to retire.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16With characteristic flamboyance
0:26:16 > 0:26:21he journeyed home in the captured carriage of the enemy General himself.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26Wrapped in General Copes' wolf-skin coat
0:26:26 > 0:26:29and fortified with a barrel of brandy,
0:26:29 > 0:26:34the carriage took Alexander as far as Tummel Bridge where the road ended.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Alexander then ordered his men to remove the wheels
0:26:37 > 0:26:42so that the carriage and its occupant could be carried along the tracks
0:26:42 > 0:26:45and bridle ways that led home to Dunalastair.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52But any thoughts of victory were short lived.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55In April 1746, news reached Alexander
0:26:55 > 0:27:00that the Jacobite Army had been destroyed at Culloden.
0:27:00 > 0:27:06Not long after this brutal and crushing defeat, Government troops appeared at Dunalastair.
0:27:06 > 0:27:11Alexander fled, as flames engulfed his home.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15Alexander was now an exile in his own lands.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17Far from the company he loved,
0:27:17 > 0:27:23he eked out his days in a small cottage on the edge of Rannoch Moor.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27He continued to write. He also continued to drink,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30but now his alcoholism dismayed the few visitors
0:27:30 > 0:27:34that made it through the desolate country to meet him.
0:27:36 > 0:27:41The end for Alexander came one night in April, 1749.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44He was in his 80th year.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47The last in the line of the old chiefs,
0:27:47 > 0:27:53he'd set out to restore glory to his clan and had become a legend in his own life time.
0:27:53 > 0:27:59No other Jacobite Officer was out in three Risings over a period of 56 years,
0:27:59 > 0:28:05and none of them managed to fundamentally live completely at odds with the law
0:28:05 > 0:28:11and the State, on their own estates for the decades that Struan managed it.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14He was a phenomenal and extraordinary character.
0:28:18 > 0:28:232,000 men of Clan Donnachaidh followed Alexander's coffin
0:28:23 > 0:28:27as it was carried the 15 miles here to the churchyard of Struan.
0:28:27 > 0:28:34Incredibly for such a monumental character, Alexander's last resting place has been lost.
0:28:34 > 0:28:40All we know is that his body lies somewhere beneath these cold sods of earth.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:54 > 0:28:57E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk