Rattray

The Rattrays take their name from the barony of Rattray in Perthshire which has been in their possession since the eleventh century. The estate includes the ruins of the Pictish ‘rath-tref’, or ‘fort dwelling’, which stands on a serpent-shaped sandy mound which is itself associated, by local tradition, with pagan rites. The heraldic supporters of the family are two knotted serpents.

The first Laird of Rattray of record is Alan, who witnessed several charters of William the Lion and Alexander II. His grandson, Eustace Rattray, was captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296 and taken prisoner to England. His son, Sir Adam Rattray, appears on the Ragman Roll swearing fealty to Edward I of England in 1296. Adam was succeeded by his son, Alexander, who was one of the barons who sat in the Parliament at Ayr in 1315 to determine the succession to the throne. Alexander’s brother, Eustace, who was to succeed him as the sixth Laird, was accused of complicity in a plot to depose Robert the Bruce and charged with treason. He was later acquitted.

Sir Silvester Rattray of Rattray was ambassador to England in 1463, and inherited large estates around Fortingall in Atholl from his mother. This aroused the jealousy of the powerful Earls of Atholl. After Silvester’s death, his son, Sir John, who had been knighted by James IV in 1488, succeeded to the estates. His eldest son died while serving as a professional soldier in the Netherlands, leaving, as well as another two sons, two daughters, the eldest of whom, Grizel, had married John Stewart, Earl of Atholl. The earl promptly claimed half the Barony of Rattray in her right. He also induced his wife’s younger sister, Elizabeth, to convey her alleged share of the barony to him. Sir John’s second son, Patrick, was driven from Rattray Castle in 1516 by Atholl and forced to take refuge in Nether Kinballoch, where he was engaged in building a new house of Craighall. He was not, however, beyond Atholl’s reach, and in 1533 he was murdered.

Silvester Rattray, Sir John’s third son, succeeded his murdered brother, and because of Atholl’s continuing threats he petitioned the king for dispensation to be legally recognised as heir before the courts in Dundee, rather than in Perth, which would have been the normal practice; the Earl’s influence was great in Perth, and Silvester considered a visit to the town too dangerous. He was in turn succeeded by his son, David Rattray of Craighall, who had three sons, the second of whom, the Reverend Silvester Rattray of Persie, became the first minister of Rattray after the Reformation.

The laird’s eldest son, George, was murdered in 1592, and his young son, Silvester, succeeded to the title. He was tutored by his uncle, the Reverend John Rattray, and on achieving his majority, he promptly allied himself to the powerful Earls of Errol, seeking greater security for his family. He died in 1612, leaving three sons. David, the eldest, was a staunch royalist who fought for Charles I, and Craighall endured a short siege as a consequence. John, the youngest, suffered more personally when he was captured after the defeat of Charles II at Worcester in 1651 and incarcerated in the Tower of London.

During these turbulent times the family sought to consolidate their lands. Patrick Rattray obtained a new charter to their lands, a charter of Novodamus, under the great seal in 1648, so uniting the barony of Kinballoch with Rattray and their other associated parishes into one free barony of Craighall-Rattray. The new barony, which passed to Patrick’s eldest son in 1682, also laid claim to the Rattray lands seized by the Earls of Atholl. His only son, Thomas, entered the Church and rose to be first Bishop of Brechin, then of Dunkeld, and in 1739 Primus of Scotland. He was an ardent Jacobite, and his second son, John, became physician to Bonnie Prince Charlie, the ‘Young Pretender’, and followed him throughout the campaigns of the Forty-five. He was captured after the Battle of Culloden, but was reprieved on the intervention of Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Session. The bishop’s eldest son, James, sheltered Jacobite fugitives at Craighall. 
The twenty-second and twenty-third Lairds died without heirs, and the estates passed to a cousin, the Honourable James Clerk Rattray, sheriff depute of Edinburgh. 
Sir James Clerk Rattray, the twenty-sixth Laird, was a distinguished soldier who rose to the rank of general and was created a Knight of the Bath in 1897. He served in the Crimea and in the defence of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58.

The family’s military traditions were continued by the present chief's father who served in the Scots Guards throughout the Second World War and was mentioned in dispatches. The family seat is still at Craighall-Rattray.