TATLER
The future of Scotland?
Scottish aristocrats are fiercely opposed to independence, but if the 'yes' vote gets its way, will they
really abandon their ancestral mountains and ancient customs? Sophia Money-Coutts goes beyond the
wall to find out
The Scottish aristocracy is nervous. Change is
afoot. 'As one whose family was involved in the 1707 Act of Union, I can't
really comment on the referendum,' barks one of the country's pre-eminent
dukes. 'But the buggers are out to get us!' The buggers, according to His
Grace, are those currently trying to persuade the Scots that they should
peel themselves off from the rest of the United Kingdom and become
independent. The vote is on 18 September, and impassioned campaigning
on both sides is in full flow. But were you to skip 300 or so
miles northwards from Berwickshire to John O'Groats, combing
heather and dredging lochs as you go, you'd be hard pushed to find a
single Scottish grandee who favours the split. Will their
80,000-acre estates be parcelled out to crofters? Might SNP leader Alex
Salmond bring in a swingeing castle tax? Will treasonous Scots cast off
the Queen as their head of state? It's causing disquiet among the
ranks, if not the file.
The buggers are out to get us!
To outsiders, Scotland has always seemed a romantic
place. The castles! The reeling! The men in skirts! But if you think it's all
wild, woolly and remote moorland, then think again, because these
days Scotland is not only teeming with tufty dukes and earls, but
also with smooth Danish fashion tycoons, Tetra Pak heirs, British
royals, Egyptian billionaires, French bankers... Half the private land is
owned by just 432 people, with 50,000-acre estates rubbing up
alongside one another. There isn't a spare inch of grouse moor to be
found.
Those who are most fearful of the impending
referendum are the nobility. Let's call it Old Scotland. Whether it's the
bracing air or the chemicals they put into Irn-Bru, Scottish toffs have
always differed somewhat from their southern counterparts,
lagging behind the pace of change by, oh, two or three centuries. If
you're Old Scotland, then you probably live in a castle with a
ghost ('We actually have five ghosts,' says Eleanor, the Duchess of
Argyll, who lives with her husband Torquhil, Scotland's
elephant-polo champion, at Inveraray Castle in West Scotland). You own
40,000 to 140,000 acres, you probably have a mountain (instead of
4,000 acres of bland home county). You have your own tartan. You
are a member of a clan and can dance complicated reels. You
regard someone who lives in another castle two hours' drive away as a
close neighbour, and indeed you are probably related to them -
although one of your ancestors almost certainly skewered one of theirs
with a pike. You also possess an impressive impermeability to the
cold, and, somewhat confusingly, an English accent too, because you
went to public school - either in the south, or more probably to
Gordonstoun or Glenalmond.
The Argylls, one of the grandest Scottish families,
are a marvellous example of Old Scotland. They are one of the 432
largest landowners in Scotland, with an estate of 60,000 acres. At
the centre sits Inveraray, a grey-stone castle used for the Scottish bits
of the Downton Abbey 2012 Christmas special. To try and make it pay
its way, the castle has been opened to the public and it has a thriving
café where day-trippers can order a 'Duke's Special Hot Chocolate' - 'hot
chocolate with cream and marshmallows,' explains Eleanor, 41, an ex-Downe
House girl who was born a Cadbury and knows her cocoa. 'This place eats
money. But what if Salmond imposes a mansion tax? We're done for,' she
says, sweeping her hand in the direction of the neat lawn in front of the
house, where a handful of American Downton fans recently landed a
helicopter for a dinner hosted by the Argylls at the castle. And yet, as
you find again and again with Old Scotland, modern life co-exists with
some fairly feudal throwbacks. The family flag will only fly over the
castle if Torquhil himself is in residence, for instance - 'not if it's
just me and the children,' explains Eleanor. And Torquhil, who has
'millions' of other titles as well as being a duke (including Marquess
of Kintyre and Lorne and Admiral of the Western Coasts and Isles),
is what's known as a clan chief - Chief of Clan Campbell, to be exact.
If Salmond imposes a mansion tax? We're done for.
If you're a member of a clan, then you are proper
Old Scotland. But unless you are Scottish or one of those Americans who
clings on to their Scottish ancestry, don't even think about trying
to understand it. The system dates from those brutal medieval
years when Scotland was under the thumb of hairy, bloodthirsty Bravehearts
wearing no underpants ('They didn't wear underwear so that they could lift
up their skirts and cross rivers without getting things wet,' explains
Mark Tennant, a 67-year-old stalwart of Old Scotland, who lives in a
castle an hour from Inverness). Extraordinarily, the clan system still
exists. In Edinburgh this April, 21 people with the surname 'Strachan'
gathered at the Royal Scots Club to nominate a new clan chief, with
various other Strachans from abroad listening in via Skype. The Strachans
had been without a chief since the last one, an admiral, died without any
heir 186 years ago. It was time to put that right. A chap in a kilt
called Rob Strachan, who runs his family's fishery in Aberdeenshire,
was duly voted in, and everyone celebrated with a boozy whisky dinner.
What does being a clan chief mean? 'Well, in
practice, probably only that the Duke of Argyll would have to have a
Campbell in for a cup of tea if they came knocking on his door,' says
Adam Bruce, son of the 90-year-old Earl of Elgin. Adam, 46, is the man
who knows everything about Old Scotland. 'The Bruce tartan is one of
Vivienne Westwood's favourite tartans,' adds Adam, who lives in
Edinburgh with his wife Sofia, daughter of the Italian Prince di Belmonte,
and their two small sons. His father, Andrew, is himself clan chief
of the Bruces, and lives in large, neo-classical Broomhall House, 15 miles
west of Edinburgh, its hall stuffed with the bits of the Elgin
Marbles that the British Museum didn't buy in 1816, after the 7th Earl 'borrowed'
them from the Parthenon.
'When George VI came here just after the war,
he said, "Still got all the loot then!''' chuckles the current earl.
When we meet, he is planning to sing a song at this summer's 700th
anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn (when King Robert the Bruce,
the family's famous ancestor, saw off the largest English army to ever
invade Scotland) for around 600 Bruces on the lawns of the estate.
Travel even further west and you will find the Earl of Glasgow,
clan chief of the Boyles and a Liberal Democrat peer whose seat is a
colourful 13th-century castle called Kelburn. This
attracted worldwide attention in 2007 after he invited four Brazilian
graffiti artists to use a large cherry-picker and spray the castle walls
with a psychedelic mural. Amid rolling Scottish hills, it looks
properly mental, but Lord Glasgow, 74, is devoted. 'I was a
bit apprehensive I suppose, but now I think it's rather lovely,' he
says. Several of his castle's window frames are buckling, and one chimney in
particular leans at an alarming angle, but his fortunes have been boosted
since 2012 by the installation of 14 wind turbines. 'You do tend to
become rather in favour of wind farms when you have one,' he admits.
In the Borders, Adrian, Lord Palmer, is
also trying to keep his estate going. He doesn't have a castle. But
he does have a whopping Edwardian house called Manderston with 109
rooms. It has been used as a film set in lieu of Buckingham Palace and has
a solid silver staircase - the only one in the world. Adrian, 62, a
descendant of the Huntley and Palmers biscuit family, is on
first-name terms with the staff who work in the first-class section
of East Coast trains, because he shuttles back and forth to London
every week for his role as a crossbench peer. 'I mean, [the
pro-independence movement] simply do not know what they're doing,' he
thunders, puffing on a small cigar in a room overlooking the house's
ornate fishponds.
But Scotland's real Buckingham Palace is Scone
Palace, where all Scottish monarchs, including Macbeth, were crowned. It's
owned by the Earl of Mansfield, although he and his wife have moved
to another house on the estate, and it's currently being revamped
for its heir, Viscount Stormont, and his family. Mungo, as he's
known, is married to the ebullient Sophy - 'she's magnificent, like
a ship in full sail,' says another Scottish toff. Their 22-year-old
daughter Iona runs with a grand young set that includes
Ossian Moncreiffe, 23, the flame-haired son of Peregrine (whose full
title is Peregrine Moncreiffe of That Ilk and who often appears at
casual dinner parties in a kilt). Scone is in Perthshire - 'the poshest
county in Scotland,' claim many of those who live there. 'Nonsense -
we call it the Surrey of Scotland,' fights back Christine, Lady de la Rue,
from the Borders. She has just sold Ayton Castle, a vast, gothic,
red-brick pile, to a pair of gay undertakers from England, but is
remaining in the Borders nonetheless.
A rival royal stronghold sits not far north of
Scone Palace: Balmoral. With just over 60,000 acres, the Queen clocks in
at number 17 on the list of Scotland's biggest private landowners.
'We've seen more of the royals recently,' says a gossipy neighbour.
'Charles and Camilla are often at Birkhall, the lodge that the Queen
Mum left Charles. Of course the royals can't comment on the
referendum, but it's almost as if by being more visible they're
trying to sway things for the unionists.'
'There is a big difference between
Balmoral and Birkhall,' says another who's in the know. 'Balmoral is
incredibly uncomfortable and hideous, with retro electric heaters and
a bagpiper who plays in the garden at nine every morning. And you'll
find all the old-school sorts invited there, like the Earl and
Countess of Airlie and Lady Butter, and all they talk about is the
Highland Games. Birkhall is a much more beautiful house with
proper hostessy touches - the sheets have a higher threadcount, there
are flowers, and the food is better. Camilla's good at all that, and
they have a more glamorous crowd to stay. Mostly friends from the
South.'
Carry on motoring and just outside Inverness
you'll find yourself on the Gibbs' Belladrum estate. Leonie Gibbs, a
ravishing sculptress and artist, was a Fox-Pitt until she married an
equally handsome Scottish chap called Joe, the descendant of a
Glaswegian iron magnate. They live in a white, fairytale house called
Phoineas, where you are likely to find Leonie, 51, drifting through the
kitchen in velvet robes - 'Do you want a cappuccino? I can make you
frothy milk on the Aga with a fork,' she offers - while Joe, 57, works on
his annual music event, the Tartan Heart Festival, headlined this
year by Tom Jones. The Gibbses are the key to this part of
Scotland. Sit at their kitchen table and you might be put next to one
of the Moncreiffe family (very Old Scotland), or Leonie's cousin, the
infamous Kenyan toff Tom Cholmondeley, who was imprisoned for three
years in Nairobi in 2006 after shooting dead a poacher on his land. If you're
very lucky, you might even get Kit Fraser, a member of the vast Fraser
clan, who lives in a castle nearby. In 2011, he stripped down to his
underpants outside the Royal Bank of Scotland AGM in Edinburgh
to demonstrate Scotland's anger at the Scottish bankers 'stripping
the nation bare'.
'It used to be nicknamed Happy Valley around
here,' explains Leonie, 'because of all the affairs. There's a bit less of
that now. It's feast or famine in this part of Scotland. In February
and March it's bleak. So bleak you almost don't want to get out of bed.
But in August all the houses are full and everyone whirls around for
tea and dinners. And reeling parties.'
Reeling - where Scots gather in kilts,
gowns and tartan sashes to whirl around to set dances called things
like 'The Dashing White Sergeant', 'The Gay Gordons' and 'The Bees
of Maggieknockater'. 'In my day, if a boy asked you to dance and you
didn't like him, you'd offer him "Hamilton House", because that
is the reel with the least touching. If you did like him, you'd offer
"The 51st", because that had the most touching,' says Lady Liza
Campbell, the 54-year-old author and sister of Colin, Earl Cawdor. He
lives in a house on the family's 60,000-acre estate in
Inverness-shire, while his stepmother, Angelika, lives in Cawdor
Castle itself, where Macbeth lived. There was an almighty row when it
transpired that Colin's father, who died in 1993, had left the castle
to his second wife, and tensions have simmered ever since. In 2002, Colin
and his family stole back into the castle while Angelika was on
holiday in America, only for her to launch legal action the second she
flew back. Colin and his family traipsed out again. Still, Angelika
has to contend with two ghosts - the first Earl Cawdor and a young lady in
a blue velvet dress with no hands - which can't be fun.
There are still big reeling balls that
take place throughout the year - the Northern Meeting in
Inverness-shire, the Oban Ball on the West Coast and the Skye
Ball being three of the grandest - although these days you're less
likely to find admiring locals lining the streets to watch partygoers
arrive in their finery. 'They're more likely to be pelting eggs!'
says Stephanie Fraser, the boss of cerebral-palsy charity Bobath
Scotland, who lives just outside Glasgow. Like dozens of grand
Scottish women, Stephanie is a patroness of the Royal Caledonian
Ball. This takes place not in Scotland, but in London every May. It
sees around 700 Scots from around the world descend on
Grosvenor House for a night of high-octane reeling. Everyone who attends
is given a little booklet, at the back of which is a list of the
ball's patronesses, rather wonderfully listed in order f precedence,
from the immensely grand Duchess of Buccleuch down to the lowly Mrs
So-and-Sos who don't have any title at all. For the past three years, it's
been compiled by Adam Bruce, the aforementioned son of the Earl of
Elgin, in his role as Marchmont Herald, a ceremonial post that
essentially means he's a direct representative of the Queen in
Scotland and from time to time has to dress up in a gold frock coat like a
town crier.
This year was the ball's first under the
helm of a new chairwoman, a dynamic blonde lawyer called Felicia
Morris. Felicia is married to a Scottish architect called Houston,
son of the late, celebrated Scottish architect James Morris. They may
live in a vast, impeccably modern house in Knightsbridge but,
when they got married, they registered their own tartan at Kinloch
Anderson - the Scottish tartan experts - and Felicia is chairwoman of
a party where nannies still bring young children to watch from a balcony
as their parents dance to bagpipe music. As the new queen of the
London-based Scots, she is also alarmed by the prospect of
independence. 'Everyone's very worried,' she says. 'It's being talked
about incessantly at dinner parties.'
There doesn't tend to be much interaction between
Old Scotland and New, because New Scotland is largely made up of
foreign money. For several decades, Scottish estates have been
slowly bought up by cash from abroad. 'Although only five or six estates
a year come on to the market,' says Evelyn Channing from
Savills' Edinburgh office. 'They come for the sport, for the fishing,
the shooting, the stalking. And for the privacy. If you own 50,000
acres of land it's quite hard to be photographed on it.'
Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai has a 62,000-acre estate
in West Scotland, just off the tip of Skye. Scotland's richest man is
another Emirati gentleman, Mahdi al-Tajir, who owns the Highland
Spring mineral-water company and 15,000 acres just outside
Gleneagles. And Mohamed Al Fayed can occasionally be found at his
pink castle, Balnagown, 30 miles north of Inverness.
Al Fayed bought the estate in 1972 because of the
links he says exist between ancient Egypt and Scotland. Legend has it
that Princess Scota, the daughter of a pharaoh, fled Egypt
around 1300BC and conquered what later became called Scotland in
her honour. 'She told all her soldiers, "Please, go and make love
with all the women and increase the Egyptians here." This is
what happened!' Al Fayed insists. Like much of New Scotland,
he doesn't come that often - 'three or four times a year now' -
but his affection for all things Hibernian means that his castle
is basically lined in tartan, and a throne that supposedly
belonged to William Wallace sits in the entrance hall. Al Fayed is no
fan of Alex Salmond - 'he is a real idiot, which is why I say he
should go fish for salmon. Ha ha!' he chuckles - but has
commissioned the sculptor William Mitchell to design Scotland's very
own Statue of Liberty, an 8ft statue of Princess Scota, should
the split go ahead.
The Arabs aren't the sole foreigners knocking about
up there either. The Danish tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen, who owns the
fashion group Bestseller, has been on a shopping binge in recent years,
snapping up estates dotted around the country that amount to 160,000
acres. The Rausing sisters, Sigrid and Lisbet, have almost 100,000 acres
between them. Donald Trump now owns two golf courses and large swathes of
land at opposite ends of the country. The polo-fanatic Swiss financier
Urs Schwarzenbach has spent a reported £20m on building a lodge near
Dalwhinnie, right in the heart of Scotland, and rumour has it that a
handful of rich Frenchies, fed up with brutal taxes at home, are on the
lookout for boltholes. But not all New Scotland is foreign. Daily Mail
editor Paul Dacre owns 18,000 acres near Ullapool, and one of Scotland's
richest women, the Stagecoach boss Ann Gloag, owns a castle, Kinfauns, and
a hefty chunk of land not far from the Gibbses. 'But did their ancestors
fight at Bannockburn?' thunders an Old Scot. Arrivistes, then. And it
illustrates neatly what Old Scotland, by and large, thinks of New. Mohamed
Al-Fayed may have had a kilt made for him, but chances are you won't find
him invited to a reel.
Given the fairly feudal distribution of land in
Scotland, you can perhaps see why the big landowners are nervous.
Cries for independence and modernisation from more urban Scots
in Glasgow and Edinburgh have rattled them. New Scotland is probably
safer. Not only are they insulated by their immense wealth, the fact that
they're foreign means they can't be blamed for notorious historical events
like the 18th- and 19th-century clearances when peasants were forced off
their land. But Old Scotland is definitely panicked, as if they can
already hear the tumbrils approaching. 'England used to be our Auld Enemy,'
says a worried Scottish peer. 'Now we really
must stick together.'
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