To commemorate the 1947 partnership between Messrs Rutherford and Macpherson, in its diamond jubilee year, the firm published a short book. The Livet part of the title alludes to my historical research about officers of law in the Banffshire district of Glenlivet. You can read the book here.
There are extremely few old records of the doings of Falkland Pursuivant. The office had been created by 1493 but was vacant from some untraced date after 1583 until 1927. But we do know (thanks to Chiefs of Grant, vol.III, p.127) what this officer of arms was doing on 3 December 1562: he was on duty at Glenlivet, at the gates of Drumin Castle. (This is not the same as, but a nearby place to, Upper Drumin, where the Glenlivet Distillery was first established.)
The which day compeared at the castle gate of Drumin… Master John Forsy [Forsyth], Falkland pursuivant, having a charge of the Queen’s Majesty to charge the captain, keepers and withholders of the said castle of Drumin, to deliver the same…within six hours after they were charged, under the pain of treason.
John Forsyth, formerly a macer (and then very briefly, Kintyre Pursuivant) was created Falkland Pursuivant in 1548. Forsyths held lands near Falkland Palace, which probably explains why there was some incentive to change heraldic title from Kintyre to Falkland. Although Strathavon and Glenlivet in Highland Banffshire are some hundred miles north of Falkland, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries these Banffshire lands were part of the estates of the Macduff Earls of Fife, who built the first castle at Falkland. Indeed, on the wall of Mortlach church in Banffshire (about 14 miles north of Drumin) is the 1694 monument which asserts – a claim unproved, but not impossible – the lawful descent of Alexander Duff from the ancient Thanes of Fife.
From that Alexander Duff certainly was descended the first Duke of Fife, a title created in 1889, following his marriage to Princess Louise, daughter of the future King Edward VII. After 30 years in Fife service, as housekeeper at Mar Lodge, firstly to the Princess Royal (as Princess Louise was from 1905 until her death in 1931), and then to her daughter, the second Duchess of Fife, Miss Jessie Stuart Black retired in 1943. Her mother was a Macpherson, and she was a second cousin of my great grandfather.
‘Glenlivet’, of course, is synonymous with whisky. The office of Falkland Pursuivant is first recorded in the Exchequer Rolls of 1494. From the following year’s accounts, but within the year 1494, is the item of such interest in the history of Scotch whisky. If you wish to, please read more.
