Helen Gunn of Braemore; myth
The story goes (overall, there are some minor variations) –
There is the story of Lachlan Gunn of Braemore who had a beautiful daughter Helen. She was meant to marry her cousin Alexander Gunn. Donald Keith of Ackergill who was acting as factor of the Braemore property saw her and made an ‘indecent proposal’ to her which she rejected and so he brought some Keiths to Braemore on her wedding night. There was a fight (’slaughter’). Helen was seized and taken to the Keith’s Ackergill Tower where she became a ‘victim of the brutal and licentious Keith’ so threw herself ‘headlong’ from the battlements. This was meant to have happened somewhere between 1400 and 1420[1].
Problems with this story
Overall the Helen of Braemore ‘event’ is just a story and should be ignored as Gunn history as it lacks any credence.
[1] From Pages 38-39 MRG.
[2] In Mark Rugg Gunn’s view the Helen Gunn of Braemore story was ‘to trigger off the mounting enmity between Gunns and Keiths’Page 37. Much of MRG’s text can be questioned.
[3] http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/9145/details/ackergill+tower/&biblio=more accessed 7 February 2013.
[4] Page 37, MRG.
[5] Page 40, MRG
[6] See, for example, eds.Keith M. Brown’s and Roland Tanners’ The History of the Scottish Parliament Volume 1; Parliament and Politics in Scotland 1235-1560, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004
[7] Chapter 3 , M. Brown and S. Boardman, ‘Survival and Revival: Late Medieval Scotland’, Ed Jenny Wormatt, Scotland A History, Oxford University Press, 2005
There is the story of Lachlan Gunn of Braemore who had a beautiful daughter Helen. She was meant to marry her cousin Alexander Gunn. Donald Keith of Ackergill who was acting as factor of the Braemore property saw her and made an ‘indecent proposal’ to her which she rejected and so he brought some Keiths to Braemore on her wedding night. There was a fight (’slaughter’). Helen was seized and taken to the Keith’s Ackergill Tower where she became a ‘victim of the brutal and licentious Keith’ so threw herself ‘headlong’ from the battlements. This was meant to have happened somewhere between 1400 and 1420[1].
Problems with this story
- Sir Robert Gordon’s A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland is the key, first text on Caithness / Sutherland history and deals with events up to about 1630. Sir Robert Gordon (1580-1656) was very well connected (born at Dunrobin Castle, for example), and had no axe to grind either for or against the Gunns. His history includes the death of Coroner Gunn and has much more about Gunns. His book, though, has no mention of any Helen Gunn of Braemore incident. If the incident had happened it would be mentioned in that text as the people involved would have been important (especially the Keiths) and the killings / rape / suicide consequently remembered[2] - the killings / rape / suicide are also not mentioned in any other document of the time. The Helen Gunn of Braemore incident not being in Gordon’s book is prima facie proof that the event did not happen.
- If true this story would have been the basis – or a good part - of a feud however the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments has Ackergill Tower being built about 1500[3] which is significantly after the supposed story happened.
- Mark Rugg Gunn’s view is that Lachlan Gunn was ‘a small proprietor in Braemore[4]’; so why did Braemore need a factor? Factors – estate managers - are normally for large estates not for a ‘small proprietor’. And the Keiths had more than enough land to keep themselves busy. As well, no Keith would be a servant at a small estate as they were important people. So a Keith at Braemore rings false…
- In Mark Rugg Gunn’s view ‘complete lawlessness existed throughout Scotland, and especially north of the Highland border[5]’ at this time which would increase the chance of the myth being true if his view was accurate. It’s not true; it’s hogwash. Parliaments existed and passed laws,[6] ‘the magnates who dominated Scotland’s regional societies were in 1400 acutely aware of their ties to king and kingdom[7]’ and the role of Coroner would not have existed in a lawless state and the Caithness Coroner existed from at least 1358. The Caithness Coroner of the Helen of Braemore time would have dealt with the murders / rape / suicide if it had happened, especially as it involved the Keiths. And it would then have been in Gordon’s history, or detailed in historical documents… Sure, law and order wasn’t perfect but ‘complete lawlessness’ was not true, and only ‘complete lawlessness’ would allow for the Helen Gunn of Braemore melodrama to be true.
- There is another story involving Braemore Gunns which involves William More who was nine feet six inches tall. That’s totally impossible. So the Braemore giant story has to be treated as fiction; this makes the Helen Gunn story more likely to be just another piece of Braemore fiction.
- And there is a problem with the ‘Braemore’ land; it is accepted that the Braemore Gunns were descendants of Gunn Coroner’s son Robert. The Helen Gunn of Braemore incident can not be the incident which starts the Gunn / Keith supposed feud around 1410 which leads to the killing of Gunn Coroner, as the Helen Gunn of Braemore incident involves land owned by grandchildren (at least) of the Coroner who died around the mid 1450s. There is absolutely no documentary support for any ealier Gunns of Braemore…
Overall the Helen of Braemore ‘event’ is just a story and should be ignored as Gunn history as it lacks any credence.
[1] From Pages 38-39 MRG.
[2] In Mark Rugg Gunn’s view the Helen Gunn of Braemore story was ‘to trigger off the mounting enmity between Gunns and Keiths’Page 37. Much of MRG’s text can be questioned.
[3] http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/9145/details/ackergill+tower/&biblio=more accessed 7 February 2013.
[4] Page 37, MRG.
[5] Page 40, MRG
[6] See, for example, eds.Keith M. Brown’s and Roland Tanners’ The History of the Scottish Parliament Volume 1; Parliament and Politics in Scotland 1235-1560, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004
[7] Chapter 3 , M. Brown and S. Boardman, ‘Survival and Revival: Late Medieval Scotland’, Ed Jenny Wormatt, Scotland A History, Oxford University Press, 2005