December 19th 1845

Earl of Kinnoull and the Auchterarder Case

One of the events which led to the Great Disruption and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland was the so-called Auchterarder Case where the patron, the Earl of Kinnoull, presented a Mr Young to the parish of Auchterarder against virtually the total opposition of the members of the kirk. Quite undeterred by the furore he had created, the Earl continued to insist on his absolute right to choose whom he pleased.

The case was fought through the courts and finally went to the House of Lords where his rights were vindicated. It demonstrated both the impotence of the Veto Act and the worst abuses of the patronage system. It also made the Earl of Kinnoull a highly unpopular man. When therefore he was involved in a court case and made to appear somewhat ridiculous there was some hard hitting moralising and no doubt some quiet sniggering too.

On Friday December 19th 1845, three horsemen are or the road between Perth and Dunning. In front of them is a solitary pedestrian standing in the middle of the road. The three men brush past him and are met with a torrent of abuse.

“Oh ye drunken blackguards; if ye do that again I’ll pull you off your horses.” He continues to abuse them as they ride on and eventually one of them turns back to confront the man. “Do you mean me?” he asks. “One of you rode against me; which of you I do not know.” “What business had you to stand in the middle of the road,” says the man who was a farmer. “What is your name?” “I am the Earl of Kinnoull.” “I don’t believe you,” says the farmer. By this time another horseman comes back and tries to seize the Earl who jumps over the paling into a field and renews his abuse.

“Hold my horse,” says the farmer to his friend and he leaps over the paling and seizes the Earl. He drags him back to the road saying “I do not believe you’re Lord Kinnoull; but whoever you are I’ll take you to Dunning or John O’ Groats before I let you go.” So saying he drags the Earl along by the collar of his jacket until they reach the South Lodge. Here the Earl screams “Murder” , throws off his jacket and flies for succour to the protective arms of Mrs Letham, the wife of his butler.

When the case came to court the poor Earl spent an uncomfortable time in the witness box. Mr Crawford, the defence solicitor “The first word uttered was you’re calling them drunken blackguards? You call the whole three drunken blackguards because one of them grazed you accidentally or otherwise?” “I presume it could not be accidentally, for there was room enough to pass. It was only half past four o’clock and not dark.”

“Did the men swear?

“Could not say they called him any opprobrious epithets.”

Mr Crawford. “Then the blackguarding was all on one side.”

The Earl was awarded Ł10 which was enthusiastically subscribed by numerous well-wishers. The Northern Warder commented gleefully. “Lord Kinnoull, though probably he has his sycophants and flatterers must be pitifully friendless. To say nothing of the ridiculous light in which this trial displays him, he is held up in the most humiliating of all possible situations - that of exhibiting a want of manhood.”

The report closes by suggesting that it is “an interesting memorial of the struggles between aristocracy and democracy in the 19th Century.”