STRATHALLAN, Viscount of, a title in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1686, on the Hon. William Drummond, grandson of James Drummond, second and younger son of David, second Lord Drummond. James Drummond, his grandfather, was educated with King James VI., and in 1585 appointed one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber. Having been with the king at Perth on the memorable 5th of August, 1600, when the earl of Gowrie and his brother were killed, he gave a distinct and clear deposition relative to that mysterious affair. He was secular “commendator” of the abbey of Inchaffray, Perthshire, before the Reformation, a house of canons regular founded in 1200, by Gilbert, earl of Strathern, and his countess Matilda. He was raised to the peerage, 31st January 1609, by the title of Lord Madderty, the parish in which Inchaffray is situated, and which, in ancient times, was the seat of a Celtic monastery. It was secularized before the foundation of Inchaffray, with which a remnant of its domains was incorporated. Previous to being created a peer, he was styled lord of Inchaffray, a name signifying “the island of masses.” He died in September 1623. By his wife, Jean, daughter of Sir James Chisholme of Cromlix, he got the lands of Innerpeffray, she being heiress, through her mother, of Sir John Drummond, the owner of that property. He had two sons and four daughters. The second son, the Hon. Sir James Drummond of Machany, carried on the line of the family.

The elder son, John, second Lord Madderty, was among the first of the nobility who joined the marquis of Montrose, at Bothwell, after the battle of Kilsyth in 1645, for which he was imprisoned. In 1649, he bound himself not to oppose the parliament, and also became cautioner for Graham of Inchbraco, the cousin of Montrose, under a penalty of £50,000. By his wife, Helen, eldest daughter of Patrick Lesly, commendator of Lindores, he had, with three daughters, five sons. 1. David, third Lord Madderty. 2. Hon. James Drummond, and 3. Hon. John Drummond, both officers in foreign service. 4. Hon. Ludovick Drummond, who fought at Worcester, and escaping thence, went into the Swedish army, and was killed at the storming of Copenhagen. 5. Hon. William Drummond, a general in the army, first viscount of Strathallan.

The eldest son, David, third Lord Madderty, was in 1644, in his father’s lifetime, imprisoned, by an order of the committee of estates, with other friends of Montrose. On his deathbed he is said to have resigned his title, 11th April 1684, in favour of his youngest brother, General William Drummond, who, however, was, at any rate, entitled to succeed to it, as his intermediate brothers had all predeceased him. The third Lord Madderty was twice married. By his first wife, a daughter of Creighton of Haltoun and Luncardie, he had a daughter, who died young. By his second wife, Lady Beatrix Graham, a sister of the great marquis of Montrose, he had two sons, who also both died young, and three daughters. 1. Hon. Margaret, wife of her cousin, John Graham, postmaster-general of Scotland, son of Patrick Graham of Inchbraco. 2. Hon. Beatrix, Countess of Hyndford. 3. Hon. Mary, wife of John Haldane of Gleneagles.

His youngest brother, the Hon. William Drummond, fifth son of the 2d Lord Madderty, had a command in the army of the “Engagement,” raised for the rescue of Charles I. in 1648. On the defeat of that enterprise he joined the marquis of Ormond, then in arms for the king in Ireland. He had the command of a regiment at the battle of Worcester in 1651, and was taken prisoner, but made his escape. He then joined the royalists under the earl of Glencairn, in the Highlands, where his kinsman, Andrew Drummond, brother of Sir James Drummond of Machany, commanded a regiment of Athol-men; and he continued with them till they were dispersed by the parliamentary general, Morgan, in 1654. Subsequently he entered the Muscovite service, where he attained the rank of lieutenant-general. As he himself says, he “served long in the wars at home and abroad, against the Polonians and Tartars.” After the Restoration, he was recalled to England by Charles II., who in 1666 appointed him major-general of the forces in Scotland. Notwithstanding his known loyalty, he was in 1675, on a mere surmise of having corresponded with some of the exiled Covenanters in Holland, imprisoned in Dumbarton castle for a year. On his release, he was restored to his command, and in 1684, appointed general of the ordnance. On the accession of King James VII., the following year, he was nominated general of the forces in Scotland, and appointed a lord of the treasury. In 1684, on the resignation of his brother, he became 4th Lord Madderty, and was created viscount of Strathallan and Lord Drummond of Cromlix., by patent dated Sept. 6, 1686, to him and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to his nearest heirs male whatsoever. He died in January 1688. In a funeral sermon preached at his decease, by Principal Monro of Edinburgh, it is said of him, “Now, we have this generous soul in Moscovia, a stranger, and you may be sure the cavalier’s coffers were not then of great weight; but he carried with him that which never forsook him till his last breath, resolution above the disasters of fortune, composure of spirit in the midst of adversity, and accomplishments proper for any station in court or camp that became a gentleman.” He wrote an account of the Drummond family, in which he traces its origin to the Hungarian noble, Maurice, who is said to have accompanied Edgar Atheling and his two sisters to Scotland in 1068. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, executed in 1663, and widow of Thomas Hepburn of Humbie, he had, with one daughter, Elizabeth, countess of Kinnoul, a son, William, second viscount of Strathallan. The latter died 7th July 1792.

On the death of his son, William, third viscount, without issue, 26th May 1711, in his sixteenth year, the estates of Cromlix, &c. devolved on the Kinnoul family as heirs of line, while the titles reverted to the heir male, his cousin, William Drummond, descended from the Hon. Sir James Drummond of Machany, second son of the first Lord Madderty. Sir James was colonel of the Perthshire foot in the “Engagement” for the rescue of Charles I. in 1648, and died before the Restoration. By his wife, Catherine Hamilton, sister of the first Lord Bargeny, he had, with a daughter, married to Alexander Robertson of Strowan, eight sons, who all died without issue except the eldest, Sir James Drummond of Machany, who was fined £500 by Cromwell in 1654, and died in July 1675. His son, Sir John Drummond of Machany, was outlawed in 1690, for his attachment to the exiled royal family, but returned to Scotland and died at Edinburgh in 1707. He had six sons and four daughters. The three eldest sons predeceased him. William, the fourth son, succeeded as fourth viscount of Strathallan. Andrew, the fifth son, was the founder of the well-known great banking-house of Drummond at Charing Cross, London. He purchased the estate of Stanmore in Middlesex in 1729, and died 2d February 1769. Thomas, the sixth son, engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and was taken prisoner at Sheriffmuir.

The fourth viscount was amongst the first to enter into the rebellion of 1715, there being no clan in Scotland more zealous in the Stuart cause than the Drummonds. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Sheriffmuir, but was not subjected to prosecution or forfeiture at that time. In 1745, within a fortnight after Prince Charles Edward displayed his standard at Glenfinnan, he was joined by Lord Strathallan, who was left in command of the rebel forced in Scotland when the Chevalier marched into England. At the battle of Culloden, Lord Strathallan had a command on the right wing of the rebel army, and when the latter gave way, he was cut down and killed by the duke of Cumberland’s dragoons. He had married in 1712, Margaret Murray, daughter of the baroness Nairne, whose devotion to the cause of the Pretender led to her imprisonment in the castle of Edinburgh, from the beginning of February to the end of November 1746, and by her had seven sons and six daughters. James, the eldest son, also took part in the rebellion of 1745, and after the battle of Falkirk, he and Oliphant, younger of Gask, entered that town, disguised as peasants, and obtained the information that General Hawley, after issuing orders to set fire to his tents, had abandoned the town, and was retreating on Linlithgow. He was included in the act of attainder, under the name of James Drummond, eldest son of the viscount of Strathallan, although at that time he was de jure viscount himself. The act of attainder was not introduced into parliament until the 8th of May, and not passed till the 4th of June 1746, nearly seven weeks after the battle of Culloden, where his father was killed. This erroneous description, it was contended, visited the attainder; but when the point came to be tried in the House of Lords, it was held that the attainder must be sustained, on the ground that, by the fiction which then obtained in English law, the whole acts passed in any one parliament were held to be passed on one day – and that day the first on which the parliament met. Interpreted by this fictitious date, the language of the act of attainder was held to be sufficiently correct; but the construction by which this decision was arrived at was considered so repugnant to common sense and common justice, that the practice which now prevails was immediately afterwards introduced, of dating every act from the day on which it passes, and declaring that, unless specially provided for to the contrary, it shall take effect from that day.

James, of right fifth viscount of Strathallan, died at Sens in Champagne in the year 1765, leaving two sons, James Drummond, who died unmarried in 1775; and Andrew John Drummond, a distinguished general officer. But for the attainder they would have been the sixth and seventh viscounts of Strathallan. The latter served in America under Sir William Howe in 1776 and the following year, and on the continent in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794. He was appointed governor of Dumbarton castle in 1810, and attained the full rank of general in the army January 1, 1812. He petitioned the king for the restoration of the titles of his family, but the House of Peers, on the opinion of the judges, decided against him on account of attainder, May 12, 1790. He died, unmarried, in 1817, when the representation of the family, with the estates, which had been re-acquired by purchase in 1775, devolved upon his cousin, James Andrew John Laurence Charles Drummond, second son of the Hon. William Drummond, third son of the fourth viscount of Strathallan. His mother was Anne, second daughter of Major David Nairne, of the French service, and his elder brother, William, a lieutenant-colonel 17th regiment, died in the West Indies, unmarried. Born 24th March 1767, the surviving son filled for many years the difficult office of chief of the British settlement at Canton, and on his return to Scotland he entered into public life. In March 1812, he was elected member of parliament for the shire of Perth, after what was reputed a keen contest in those days – the votes recorded in his favour being 69, while those given to his gallant opponent, Sir Thomas Graham of Balgowan, (better known by his later title of Lord Lynedoch,) were 51. The contest was renewed at the general election in the autumn of the same year, when Mr. Drummond was again victorious – polling 75 votes, while Sir Thomas Graham polled 68. Twice subsequently, in July 1818 and in March 1820, Mr. Drummond was returned by the freeholders of Perthshire, without opposition, and he continued to represent their interests in the House of Commons until the year 1824, when, by an act of parliament, which received the general approbation of the country, he was restored to the titles of Viscount Strathallan, Lord Madderty and Drummond of Cromlix, which the mistaken loyalty of his ancestors had forfeited seventy-eight years previously. His lordship was soon afterwards chosen one of the representative peers of Scotland, and this distinction he continued to hold till his death on 14th May 1851.

In 1809 his lordship married Lady Amelia Sophia Murray, third daughter of John fourth duke of Athol, and by her ladyship, who died in 1849, he had; 1. William Henry, 8th viscount of Strathallan; 2. Hon. Marianne-Jane, born in 1811, married in 1842 Major George Drummond Graeme of Inchbreckie; 3. Hon. James Robert, born in 1812, Capt. R.N., C.B.; 4. Hon. Edmund, born in 1814, married, in 1837, Julia Mary, daughter of J.C.C. Sutherland, Esq. of Calcutta; 5. Hon. Francis Charles, born in 1815; 6. Hon. Robert Andrew John, born in 1820.

The eldest son, William Henry Drummond, 8th viscount, born March 5, 1810, an officer in the army; elected in 1853 a Scots representative peer; married, in 1833, Christina-Maria Herzey, sister of Sir David Baird, bart., of Newbyth; issue, 3 sons and 4 daughters. James David, master of Strathallan, the eldest son, born in 1839, an officer 11th hussars.

The great banking-house of the Drummonds at Charing Cross, London, has had several members of the Strathallan family as its partners. The Hon. Henry Drummond of the Grange, Hampshire, M.P., a younger son of the master of Strathallan, de jure fifth viscount, forfeited in 1746, was, in his time, head of the bank. His son, Henry, also banker and member of parliament, married the Hon. Anne Dundas, second daughter of the first Viscount Melville, and was father, with other children, of Henry Drummond of Albany Park, Surrey. Born in 1786, the latter married, in 1807, Lady Henrietta Hay, eldest daughter of the ninth earl of Kinnoul, issue 3 sons who all predeceased him, and 2 daughters. His elder daughter and heiress, Louisa, married, in 1845, Lord Lovaine, eldest son of the earl of Beverley. Mr. Drummond, the distinguished banker at Charing Cross, was the head of the Catholic Apostolic or Irvingite church. He was elected M.P. for West Surrey in 1847; a member of the royal academy of fine arts at Florence; founder of the professorship of political economy at Oxford, a magistrate of Surrey, and president of the London Western Literary Institution.

Other members of the family connected with the banking-house at Charing Cross, were Andrew Berkeley Drummond of Cadlands, and Charles Drummond, whose second son, Edward, born 30th March 1792, was private secretary to Sir Robert Peel, and died 25th January 1843, from the effect of a pistol shot received from a lunatic assassin of the name of M’Naghton, in the open street, and intended for that eminent statesman, whom he was accompanying from the bank at Charing Cross. His brother, Berkeley, died a major-general in the army.