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Clan Haig

TYDE WHAT MAY


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Scottish History

of Clan Haig


A family at war

The Haig Clan have been admired throughout history for their battlefield prowess and perhaps it is not surprising that this family characteristic –all the way from the twelfth century to the twentieth.

Indeed, the very first Haig was a warrior. He was Petrus de Hago, a Norwegian of Pictish extraction who arrived in Scotland with the seaborne Viking forces of King Harald IV of Norway. His ship hit trouble off the Berwickshire coast and sank. De Hago survived and was befriended by the Earl of March, a powerful landlord, whose massive estates straddled the eastern border between Scotland and England. Eventual-ly, de Hago married the Earl’s daughter and was given land at Bemersyde, close to Newtown St Boswells and near the River Tweed. However no written record of his life survives.

Official records show that the Haigs are descendants of Petrus de Haga, who himself was a descendant of the shipwrecked Norwegian de Hago. De Haga was a landowner in Bermersyde during the reigns of Malcolm IV and William the Lion of Scotland. William the Lion, the king of Scots who reigned from 1165 to 1214, is credited with founding Arbroath Abbey, the site of the later Declaration of Arbroath. However, he is best known for adopting the use of the Lion Rampant on his flag. It was a red lion on a yellow background which is still in use today.

Petrus was a signatory to a document which accompanied the donation of the Chapel of St Leonards in Lauderdale to the Monastery of Dryburgh by Richard de Morville, who was Constable of Scotland. Petrus was moving in exalted circles. The office of the Constable of Scotland ranked higher than all others except the Lord Chancellor and the Royal Family. Among his responsibilities were chief judge of the high court and supreme commander of the army answering only to the king. He also enjoyed the privilege of sitting on the king’s right hand side in Parliament and custody of the keys to Parliament House. Most of the powers, however, disappeared when the Act of Union 1707 came into being.

The son of Petrus de Haga, also Petrus, was appointed by King Alexander II of Scotland to join forces with Sir Alexander Davenant and track down John and Walter de Bissett, who killed the Earl of Athol by burning down his Haddington home in 1242.

Their inability to capture de Bissett almost proved very costly in the long run. After the murder the Scottish nobility, headed by Patrick, earl of March, and David de Hastings, who had married the aunt of Athol, raised their followers, and demanded Bisset’s life. Bisset obtained the protection of king Alexander II but even he couldn’t keep the hordes seeking revenge at bay. Bissett and his family fled to Ireland and his Berwickshire estates were confiscated. Bissett made his way to England and talked King Henry III into invading Scotland. However, King Alexander anticipated the attack and massed his own forces at the border. On seeing this, the English barons lost their appetite for battle and war was averted.

Petrus’s son, John, was a supporter of William Wallace during the wars of Scottish independence and fought with him at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297, during which the English forces were routed.

John’s son, Petrus, fought at Bannockburn with Robert the Bruce. The battle, in 1314, was a decisive Scots victory in the First War of Scottish Independence. Petrus later died at the Battle of Halidon Hill, near Berwick, in 1333, along with thousands of his countrymen, as the Scots were routed.

It was at this point that the Hagas became known as the Haigs. John Haig, the fifth Baron of Bemersyde, died at the Battle of Otterbourne in 1388. This was another famous Scots victory, one of the few on English soil.

Gilbert Haig, the eighth Baron fought in the Scottish army which defeated the Earl of Northumberland’s English forces at Sark in 1448. It was an important victory because it was the first time both armies used strongbows. Prior to that it was an exclusively English tactic which had wreaked havoc on their enemies. The Scots were led by William Douglas the eighth Earl Douglas, who became a very powerful and popular figure and that put him on a collision course with King James II of Scotland. In 1452 the king invited Douglas to Stirling Castle. When he got there an argument about Douglas’s loyalty broke out and the king killed him. Douglas had no heirs so the title passed to his brother James, who vowed revenge against the king.

James, like his dead brother, was a member of the Black Douglas line, so named after Sir James Douglas who was born in 1286. When King Robert the Bruce was crowned in 1306 he was the first Scottish nobleman to pledge loyalty to him. Thereafter Douglas was a constant companion and fighter alongside Bruce. His ability to take on and defeat bigger and better armed English forces led his enemies to refer to him as Black Douglas. At the same time another branch of the family, under the Earl of Angus, were known as the Red Douglases, and they supported the king against James. Gilbert Haig certainly had the knack of being on the winning side, because on this occasion he fought with the victorious Angus.

Gilbert’s son, James, wasn’t so fortunate. He chose to support King James III who, despite a long 48-year reign, was deeply unpopular. When the king was eventually killed in battle by forces loyal to his son and heir James IV, James Haig was forced to flee to France and could only return to Scotland after pledging his loyalty to the new king.

The tenth Baron, William Haig, fell at Flodden in 1513. This was the last and bloodiest battle fought between Scotland and England.

The Scots lost between six and ten thousand men, including twelve earls, fourteen lords, one archbishop, three bishops and 68 knights and gentlemen, as well as King James IV. The English, who were outnumbered, lost only 1,500 and a few of their leaders.

William’s son, Robert Haig, avenged his father’s death nearly 30 years later at the Battle of Ancrum Moor. This took place near Jedburgh and came about as a result of King Henry VIII’s failed attempt to forge an alliance with Scotland. The English monarch wanted an agreement that the infant Mary, Queen of Scots would marry his son and heir Edward. The Scottish parilament rejected his request and voted to renew the Auld Alliance with France.

Henry responded by waging a vicious war against Scotland, with his forces, under the command of Lord Evers, destroying and pillaging much of the Borders and Edinburgh. The Scots repulsed them under the Earl of Arran and the Earl of Angus. Robert Haig personally captured Lord Evers and the Crown rewarded him by discharging all the duties due by his family. Evers died at Bemersyde and was buried in the Abbey at Melrose, a town he had sought to destroy.

James Haig, the fourteenth Laird of Bemersyde, had eight sons. Four of them continued the family’s military tradition by dying while fighting for the Elector Palatinate, who was the King of Bohemia between 1619-20.

James Haig’s fifth son, David, maintained the family line. He was succeeded by his son Anthony who followed his uncles by becoming a mercenary in a foreign army, this time under the King of Sweden.

For some years after David’s death the Haigs ceased to be warriors. William Haig, the nineteenth Laird was the King’s Solicitor for Scotland during the reign of James VI and Charles I. The twenty-first Laird, Anthony Haig was persecuted for his membership of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and was imprisoned for many years.

The Haigs lived in Bemersyde for centuries and almost bore out the ancient prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer, who was a 13th century poet and seer who lived in Erceldoune, a part of Berwickshire now known as Earlstoun. Thomas is said to have predicted several significant events in Scotland’s history including the succession of Robert the Bruce to the throne, the defeat at Flodden and the Union of the Crowns.

He also wrote, “Tyde, Tyde, what’er betide There’ll aye be Haigs at Bemersyde” In the 17th century the Chief of Haig had twelve daughters before a son but in the 19th century the 25th Laird and his three sisters all died unmarried. The Laird arranged for the estate to be passed to Arthur Balfour Haig of the Clackmannanshire branch of the family which was descended from a second son of the 17th Laird. In 1921 the British Government bought the estate from Balfour Haig and presented it to Field-Marshal Earl Haig in recognition of his services during the First World War.

Success and failure

The Haig Clan, apart from distinguishing themselves on the battle field, also became famous in another sphere, whisky distilling. As far back as 1655 Robert Haig was summoned by the Kirk Session for distilling on the Sabbath. The following century saw them become highly successful in the business of making and selling Scotland’s national drink. By the nineteenth century the Haig brand were well established and it was into this fabulously wealthy family that the most famous and most controversial of all Haigs was born in 1861.

Douglas Haig was the son of John Haig who ran the family business. He was sent to Clifton College, a boarding school in Bristol and from there went to Oxford University from 1880-83. He failed to complete his degree and left to enroll at the Royal Military College in Sandhurst. He was a prizewinning student and graduated a year later in 1884.

A year after leaving Sandhurst he was a lieutenant in the 7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars. His first overseas posting was to Inda in 1887, where he gained administrative experience. He got his first taste of fighting in Sudan at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. The British forces, under General Sir Horatio Kitchener defeated the local tribesmen. From there it was on to the Boer war where he served as Chief Staff Officer for Major-General John French and was Mentioned in Despatches four times. His closeness to Kitchener and French would play a major influence on his future career. However, at that stage his progress was slow. By the age of 38 he was still a captain. But within five years he had become the youngest Major-General in the British army. He had also become a Knight Commander of the Bath, an ancient order of chivalry, and an Aide de Camp to King Edward VII.

In 1905 he married the Honourable Dorothy Vivian, one of the maids of honour to Queen Alexandra.

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Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the Haig family.

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