The clan Rose

James Irvine Robertson looks at one of Scotland's great families.

One generation passes by after another, of these peaceful Barons of Kilravock, with scarcely a shade of variety in their individual characters.

The revolutions of their country, or the empire, little affected them.

Through changes of government and of dynasty, amid Church schisms and Celtic rebellions, they held the even tenor of their way - keeping aloof from faction - shunning the crowd; yet not merely vegetating, nor sunk in stupid indifference. They had felt the charms of music, and solaced themselves with old books, and old friends, and old wine. They enjoyed the society of a few neighbours; did their duty to their people: they had their garden to tend, the interest of their woods and fields, the sports of the moorland and the river. If these memorials of their peaceful lives record few events of stirring interest, or of a political or public character, they show more than has been hitherto known of the domestic life of our northern gentry, and mark a progress in cultivation and refinement in their rank, fully keeping pace with the remarkable improvement in the physical condition of the commons.' In the turbulent and bloody history of the struggle for survival and power of the clans of Scotland, the Roses of Kilravock are quite exceptional. No other clan in Scotland enjoyed anything like its eight centuries of documented occupation of its territory without serious strife.

The chiefs - almost all named Hugh - died in their beds, spread their numerous offspring across t...

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• By : James Irvine Robertson
• In : Clans
• Issue : 60
• Page : 71
• Words : 1,044