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Clan Ramsay

PRAY AND WORK


Clan Ramsay are a Lowland clan of Anglo-Normal origin. The first clan chief recorded was Simon de Ramsay - he was given land in Lothian by King David I.

By the 13th century there were five distinct branches of the Ramsay clan. Despite swearing allegiance to Edward I of England in 1296, William Ramsay later declared his support for Robert the Bruce and was a signatory of the Declaration of Arbroath.

The Ramsays were known for their military prowess. They fought in Europe, India and Canada during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Ramsay clan motto is "Ora et labora" (Pray and work) and the clan crest is a unicorn's head.

Scottish History

of Clan Ramsay


Freedom fighters

Although their origins lie far across the Scottish border in the present day English county of Huntingdonshire, generations of Ramsays have been centre stage in the high romance and drama of Scotland’s history.

The origin of the name itself is curious, stemming from a location in the English county that was known as ‘Hramsa Ey’, an Old English name meaning ‘wild garlic island.’

From this came the name of de Ramesie (‘of Ramesie’) and in later centuries it assumed the more common forms of Ramsay, and Ramsey, that are found today.

What was to prove the family’s long association with Scotland began in 1124 when Sir Symon de Ramesie was among the many Anglo-Normans who came north in the train of David I, who had spent some time at the English court and been impressed with both Norman manners and efficiency.

Sir Symon’s ancestors, meanwhile, had in all likelihood first settled in England in the wake of the Norman invasion of 1066 and taken their name from the land they had been granted in Huntingdonshire.

The family was to flourish for centuries in Scotland, with important branches holding lands that included Dalhousie, in Midlothian, and further north, in Angus, where Brechin Castle remains the family seat.

There is both a red and a blue Ramsay tartan, while the family crest is the head of a unicorn and the motto is ‘Pray and work’ – and ‘work’ is something the Ramsays certainly did, particularly in the cause of Scotland’s bitter Wars of Independence with England.

Scotland had been thrown into crisis in 1286 with the death of Alexander II and the death four years later of his successor, the Maid of Norway, who died while en route to Scotland to take up the crown.

John Balliol was controversially enthroned at Scone as King of Scots in 1292 – but fatefully for the nation they had asked the powerful Edward I of England to arbitrate in the bitter dispute over the succession to the throne, and the hapless Balliol had found himself Edward’s chosen man.

The Scots rose in revolt against the imperialist designs of Edward in July of 1296 but, living up to his sobriquet of ‘Hammer of the Scots’, the ruthless monarch brought the entire nation under his subjugation little less than a month later, garrisoning strategic locations throughout the length and breadth of the nation.

To reinforce his domination of Scotland, 1,500 earls, bishops, and burgesses were required to sign a humiliating treaty of fealty, known as the Ragman Roll, because of the number of ribbons that dangled from the seals of the reluctant signatories.

Subjugation under the iron fist of English occupation did not sit well with the proud Scots, however, and the great patriot William Wallace raised the banner of revolt in May of 1297.

A charismatic leader and an expert in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, Wallace and his hardened band of freedom fighters set Scotland aflame – boosting the morale of their fellow countrymen as they inflicted a stunning series of defeats on the English garrisons.

This culminated in the liberation of practically all of Scotland following the battle of Stirling Bridge, on September 11, 1297.

But, defeated at the battle of Falkirk on July 22, 1298, after earlier being appointed Guardian of Scotland, Sir William Wallace was eventually betrayed and captured seven years later, and was brutally executed in London as a ‘traitor’ on August 23, 1305.

His execution only served to further inflame Scottish patriotism, however, and the cause of the nation’s freedom was taken up again, this time under the inspired leadership of the great warrior king Robert the Bruce, who had been enthroned as king at Scone in March of 1306.

Over the next eight long years, Bruce and his band of loyal supporters such as the Ramsays experienced a number of setbacks, but these were outweighed by an astonishing series of successes that, to use a boxing analogy, had the occupying English forces reeling on the ropes.

By the summer of 1314, the strategically important and mighty bastion of Stirling Castle was still in English hands, under the command of Sir Philip de Mowbray.

Bruce’s brother, Edward, had agreed a year earlier to a pledge by Mowbray that if the castle was not relieved by battle by midsummer of the following year, then he would surrender.

This made battle inevitable, and by June 23 of 1314 the two armies faced one another at Bannockburn, in sight of the castle.

It was on this day that Bruce killed the English knight Sir Henry de Bohun in single combat, but the battle proper was not fought until the following day, shortly after the rise of the midsummer sun.

The English cavalry launched a desperate but futile charge on the densely packed ranks of Scottish spearmen known as schiltrons, and by the time the sun had sank slowly in the west the English army had been totally routed, with Edward himself only narrowly managing to make his escape from the carnage of the battlefield.

A Scots army had defeated a 20,000-strong English army under Edward II less than half this strength, and Scotland’s independence had been secured.

The nation may have been free from English domination, however, but England still stubbornly and steadfastly refused to recognise Bruce as Scotland’s legitimate monarch, or even the smaller nation’s inalienable right to independence.

In 1320, Sir William Ramsay was among the signatories of what is recognised as the most important document in Scottish history – the resounding clarion call of Scotland’s right to freedom and independence known as the Declaration of Arbroath.

Calling for the Pope’s intervention in the nation’s bitter and bloody feud with its powerful English neighbour, it contains the memorable and inspirational sentiment that: ‘It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up except with his life.’

It was not until 1328, however, that Edward III, by signing the Treaty of Norham, at last renounced all claims of English supremacy over Scotland.

To consolidate this new rapport between the two nations, the treaty also provided for the marriage of Bruce’s heir and successor, the four-year-old David, to Edward’s seven-year-old sister, Joan.

The children, accordingly, were ‘married’ three months after the treaty was signed.

By June of the following year, however, Bruce was dead, and with David now King of Scots, predators gathered to wrest the kingship from his grasp.

This led to what is known as the Second War of Succession and Independence, and foremost among the Scots patriots who rallied to their nation’s cause was Sir Alexander Ramsay, whose father William had signed the Declaration of Arbroath.

Mystery and murder

Edward Balliol son of the John Balliol, who had briefly ruled as king of Scots, became one of the ‘pretenders’ to the Scottish throne following the death of Bruce, and had powerful support from a disaffected group of nobles known as the Disinherited – so named because Bruce had deprived them of their lands for siding with the English cause.

With the encouragement and backing of England and the disaffected Scottish nobles, Balliol raised an invasion force that landed at Kinghorn, Fife, on August 6, 1332.

As Balliol and his supporters advanced northwards towards Perth, the Earl of Mar, who had been appointed Guardian of Scotland during David II’s minority, hastily raised a force that eventually clashed with Balliol a few days later on Dupplin Moor.

The outcome was total disaster for the Scots, as Mar himself, along with sixty knights and more than 2,000 spearmen were left dead on the battlefield.

Further humiliation was to follow on September 24, 1332, when Balliol had himself crowned king at Scone, swearing fealty two months later to Edward III, as ‘lord superior’ of Scotland.

Sir Andrew Murray, however, the son of the Sir Andrew Murray whose tactical genius had been largely instrumental in securing Wallace’s victory over the English at the battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297, gathered a force of fellow patriots, including Sir Alexander Ramsay, who embarked on a series of lightning raids on Balliol and his supporters.

They were defeated in May of 1334, however, at the battle of Halidon Hill, southwest of Berwick-on-Tweed on July 19, and Balliol ceded large chunks of the kingdom to Edward III.

This failed to dampen the flames of revolt, however, and Sir Alexander Ramsay, recognised as one of the greatest warriors of his age, carried out a series of daring raids from his secret headquarters in the caves of Hawthornden, on the banks of the Esk, and overlooked today by the site of the famed Rossyln Chapel.

He even raided as far as Northumberland, while in 1338 he was instrumental in helping to lift the siege of Dunbar Castle.

Four years later, in 1342, he stormed and took the fortress of Roxburgh, for which he was later rewarded with the post of the castle’s governor.

In what was to prove literally fatal to Sir Alexander, he was also rewarded with the post of Sheriff of Teviotdale, and this incurred the wrath of the powerful Borders family, the Douglases, who had previously held the post.

Totally unsuspecting, Sir Alexander had invited Sir William Douglas to sit beside him while he conducted some of his sheriff’s duties in the church at Hawick.

Douglas, without warning, drew his sword, viciously attacked Ramsay and, throwing his body over a horse, rode furiously for Hermitage Castle, in Liddesdale, and confined him in the dark and fetid depths of its dungeon.

The hapless Ramsay was left to slowly starve to death, and there is one tradition that he managed to eke out his last miserable days by eating grains of corn that had fallen through gaps in the floor of a granary above the dungeon.

Intriguingly, in the late nineteenth century stonemasons who had been engaged in work at Hermitage Castle uncovered a vault in which lay not only human bones, a rusted sword, and the remains of a saddle, but a pile of corn chaff.

In 1400, Sir Alexander Ramsay put up such a spirited defence of Dalhousie Castle, in Midlothian, that Henry IV of England’s invasion force had to finally abandon their siege of the castle in frustration.

Two years later, however, he was killed at the battle of Homildon Hill after a Scots raiding army that had reached as far as Durham was intercepted on its way back north and defeated under the withering fire of the deadly English archers.

Another Sir Alexander Ramsay also fell dead on English soil – at the battle of Flodden, on September 9, 1513, when 5,000 Scots including James IV, an archbishop, two bishops, eleven earls, fifteen barons, and 300 knights were killed.

The Scottish monarch had embarked on the venture after Queen Anne of France, under the terms of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and her nation, appealed to him to ‘break a lance’ on her behalf and act as her chosen knight.

Crossing the border into England at the head of a 25,000-strong army that included 7,500 clansmen and their kinsmen, James engaged a 20,000-strong force commanded by the Earl of Surrey.

Despite their numerical superiority and bravery, however, the Scots proved no match for the skilled English artillery and superior military tactics of Surrey.

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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 Ramsay family.

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The Crests

of Clan Ramsay

Clan Ramsay
Clan Ramsay (Balmain, co. Kincardine)
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Clan Ramsay
Clan Ramsay
Clan Ramsay

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Spellings

of Ramsay

Ramesay
Ramesey
Rameseye
Ramesia
Ramesie
Ramessay
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Rammeseye
Ramsey
Remesey

186 Clan Ramsay

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