James MacPherson

- 1700    Has 11 ancestors but no descendants in this family tree.

• Name	James MacPherson
  Gender	Male
  Death	Nov 1700	Cross of Banff
  Person ID	I678674	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	12 Mar 2010

  
  

  Father	John MacPherson   d. Yes, date unknown
  Mother	NN   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F298224	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  most famous of Scottish outlaws, was the illegitimate son of a Highland laird, MacPherson of Invereshie, and a beautiful tinkler-gypsy girl he met at a wedding. Jamie was brought up in his father's house, and it is related that "he grew up to beauty, strength and stature rarely equalled". He became an expert swordsman, and a renowned fiddler. After the death of his father - Invereshie was killed while attempting to recover cattle stolen by reivers - Jamie was reclaimed by his mother's people, and eventually became the leader of the band. They lived, as their descendants still do, by buying and selling the means of transport (horses then, second-hand cars now), and seem to have been quite popular with the ordinary country folk. However, MacPherson incurred the enmity of the rich lairds and farmers of the low country of Banff and Aberdeenshire, and especially of a brash go-getter Duff of Braco who organised a posse to catch him. At Saint Rufus Fair in Keith he was attacked by Braco's men, and was captured after a fierce fight. (According to the traditional account, a woman dropped a blanket over him from a window, and he was disarmed before he could get free of it.) It was still at that time a criminal offence merely to be an Egyptian (Gypsy) in Scotland, and it was under this statute that MacPherson was tried in November 1700. A procès-verbal of his trial is still extant; the following is the text of the death sentence: "Forasmeikle as you James McPherson, pannal [accused] are found guilty by ane verdict of ane assyse, to be knoun, holden, and repute to be Egiptian and a wagabond, and oppressor of his Magesties free lieges in ane bangstrie manner, and going up and down the country armed, and keeping mercats in ane hostile manner, and that you are a thief, and that you are of pessimae famae. Therfor, the Sheriff-depute of Banff, and I in his name, adjudges and discernes you the said James McPherson to be taken to the Cross of Banff, from the tolbooth thereof, where you now lye, and there upon ane gibbet to be erected, to be hanged by the neck to the death by the hand of the common executioner, upon Friday next, being the 16th day of November instant, being a public weekly mercat day, betwixt the hours of two and three in the afternoon ...." While under sentence of death MacPherson is said to have composed the tune of the Rant, and he is also said to have played it under the gallows, and then to have broken [his fiddle] either across his knee or over the executioner's head. It is universally believed in the North-East that a reprieve was on its way to Banff at the time of the execution, and that the town clock was put forward a quarter of an hour so that MacPherson could be hanged before the reprieve arrived. The Laird of Grant is mentioned in the song because he attempted to secure the release of two men captured with MacPherson, by claiming that they were subject to his hereditary feudal jurisdiction. He is referred to as "that Highland sant" (i.e. saint) because unlike the MacPhersons he was a staunch Protestant and a militant partisan of King William, whose cause he had supported with three hundred men at the Battle of the Haughs of Cromdale (1690). MacPherson's Rant has naturally been a permanent favourite with the travelling people [...]. [Davie Stewart's] text, like Jimmy McBeath's, is a descendant of a broadside execution ballad about MacPherson which was probably on sale either at or soon after the execution. It has been held to be appreciably superior, as poetry, to Robert Burns's celebrated braggadocio re-write. Again, the popular voice attributes the original broadside text to MacPherson himself.