Fifteen Minutes Sealed His Fate: The Tragic Legend of Scotland's 'Robin Hood'

The legend of Robin Hood is well-known and has been depicted in numerous stories and movies. His existence as a real person is uncertain, though there have been people with similar names who may have been the basis for the folk tales.

However, one historical figure is considered the Scottish Robin Hood.

During my recent trip to Scotland, a guide told us about James “Jamie” MacPherson, and I have since learned his life and death involved thievery, prejudice, and deceit. But he was—and to some extent, still is—admired by Scots for his bravery, daring, and musical ability.

James MacPherson was born in northeast Scotland in 1675, the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a beautiful Traveller woman who met at a wedding.

To understand the context, we need to take a side-trip: Travellers in Scotland refers to diverse, unrelated nomadic communities, speaking a variety of different languages and holding to distinct customs, histories, and traditions. Also known as Gypsies, Tinkers, and Romani, they lived in England and Scotland as early as the 1200s, and some groups, including the Scottish Highland Travellers, are considered indigenous. However, society considered them deceitful and criminal. Believing they originated in Egypt, they were often referred to as “Egyptians,” and in 1530 and 1554, English laws called the Egyptians Acts were passed, aimed at expelling them. In 1609, the Scottish Parliament passed the “Act against the Egyptians,” which made it lawful to condemn, detain and execute Gypsies if they were known or reputed to be ethnically Romani. This unfortunate law eventually became the death sentence for Jamie MacPherson.

A common practice of noblemen at the time was to acknowledge an illegitimate son and raise him in their own household. And so Lord MacPherson did, taking him into Invereshie House in Inverness-shire. His mother may have visited him annually, maintaining a relationship and sharing knowledge of the Travellers. When the boy was still young, the laird was killed, reportedly by cattle thieves, and young Jamie went to live with his mother’s clan.

AI-generated image via ChatGPT

Apparently Jamie fit in well with his mother’s folk and learned the music, songs, and stories of this rich culture (which is still active today). He is described by one writer as having “beauty, strength and stature rarely equalled.” In other words, he was “tall, strong, and handsome,” and he is known to have been a skilled swordsman and proficient fiddler. Because of his charisma, he became the leader of a band of catarans (cattle-thieves), as well as a legitimate horse dealer.

The reason he is considered the Scottish Robin Hood is that his band of outlaws stole only from those “who could afford to be parted from their possessions,” and that at least some of his ill-gotten gain was shared with the poor. According to one source, “no act of cruelty, or robbery of the widow, the fatherless, or the distressed was ever perpetrated under his command.”

Growing more confident—or arrogant, he and his men would march into a town during a fair or market day, following a piper, and rob merchants and nobles. Though the common folk admired him, this boldness made enemies among the ruling class. One man in particular, Lord Alexander Duff of Braco, particularly hated him and sought to have him arrested and killed.

At least two times, MacPherson was captured but escaped. But in the autumn of 1700, his men marched into the town of Keith during the St. Rufus’ Fair. Duff and his supporters ambushed them and engaged in hand-to-hand combat. One of MacPherson’s outlaws was killed. According to the stories, MacPherson himself was captured when a woman threw a blanket over him from the upper window of a house, preventing him from using his sword.

In addition to being charged with his crimes of thievery, he was tried for being an “Egyptian,” which allowed for execution. Four of the outlaws were found guilty by the “hereditary judge,” who is believed to have been a friend of Duff. Hereditary judges were untrained in law but given the power to hold trials in their region.

Two of his men were given a stay of execution, but Jamie and one other man were sentenced to death. While imprisoned in the Banff tollbooth, MacPherson played his fiddle and composed a song which became known as “MacPherson’s Rant.”

The order called for Jamie to be executed in Banff between the hours of 2 and 3 o’clock on November 16, a market day.

According to one story, Jamie’s mother sought a reprieve for him and was successful. However, as she rode desperately toward Banff, Duff learned she was coming with the reprieve. To ensure the sentence was carried out before she arrived, he ordered the town clock to be set forward by 15 minutes.

James MacPherson's broken fiddle, on display
at the Clan MacPherson Museum

Several versions of the hanging exist, but the most romantic is that MacPherson was allowed to play his fiddle beneath the gallows. He played the lament he had written while imprisoned, and then offered to give his fiddle to anyone who would play it at his burial. No one accepted, and he broke the fiddle so that no one would ever play it again. The broken fiddle is displayed at the Clan MacPherson Museum in Newtonmore.

His lament was written down within a year, and some years later, Robert Burns revised it with the title of “MacPherson’s Farewell.” The song has become a staple of the Scottish musical scene and is frequently played at Burns Suppers, celebrations of the poet’s life and works. It includes these lines:

O what is death but parting breath? 

On many a bloody plain

I've dar'd his face, and in this place

I scorn him yet again!

Untie these bands from off my hands,

And bring me to my sword;

And there's no a man in all Scotland,
But I'll brave him at a word.

 Legend has it that the Banff magistrates were reprimanded for changing the clock, and that the town clock remained 15 minutes fast for many years.

Many details of Jamie MacPherson’s life and death have been blurred and embellished, but it seems clear that he was, indeed, a heroic Robin-Hood-like figure, beloved by the common folk but killed through treachery.

Sources:

James Macpherson, Outlaw: Biography on Undiscovered Scotland

Our Legal Heritage: James Macpherson – hung for being an ‘Egyptian’ | Scottish Legal News

“My heart broke into a million pieces” – A Scottish Traveller mother's tale of an outlaw son | Travellers Times

A Parcel of Rogues: Jamie MacPherson - Making a song and dance over the fate of Scotland's Robin Hood | The National

Story behind the song… Macpherson's Rant - Issuu

Scottish Romani and Traveller groups explained

Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and ‘40s. An unpublished novel, Shifting Currents, placed second in the inspirational category of the nationally recognized Maggie Awards. Learn more at www.MarieWellsCoutu.com.

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The historical short story, “All That Glistens,” was included in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction collection and is now available free when you sign up for Marie's newsletter here. In her newsletter, she shares about her writing, historical tidbits, recommended books, and sometimes recipes. Soon she'll be sharing a historical romantic short story set in Scotland.