Clan Burnett

History

Accounts of the Burnetts of Leys begin in 1323. Several say that Robert the Bruce rewarded Alexander Burnard, also spelled Alexander de Burnard or Alexander Burnett, with land near Banchory and the post of Royal Forester of Drum. The surname appears in different spellings from one account to the next, which is typical of families from this era.

A carved ivory horn, the Horn of Leys, is said to have symbolised that forestry post. Today it hangs in the High Hall at Crathes. One account has the Bruce handing it over together with the charter. That is tradition, not documented fact, and we cannot show that the horn is as old as the story says.

According to these accounts, the family spent roughly its first 250 years on a crannog, a man-made island, in the Loch of Leys north of Banchory. The loch has since been drained. An island home gave a measure of security, though it can hardly have been comfortable across so many generations.

The family reached dry land in the sixteenth century. Building of the tower house at Crathes Castle started in 1553, stalled more than once, and was completed in 1596. One account puts the delays down to the unrest of Mary, Queen of Scots' reign. Sources disagree about which lairds oversaw the work, so we name none. Crathes remains a fine Scottish tower house, with painted ceilings and heraldic decoration indoors.

Crathes stayed with the Burnetts into the twentieth century. One account says Major-General Sir James Burnett, thirteenth baronet of Leys, gave the castle and estate to the National Trust for Scotland in 1951, while another says 1952. One source reports that a fire in 1966 damaged the Queen Anne wing. Visitors can now tour the castle, which the Trust looks after.

The family motto, Virescit vulnere virtus, is usually rendered as courage flourishes at a wound, though some sources phrase the English a little differently, so that is a question of wording rather than fact. Not everyone called Burnett, Burnet or Barnet descends from the Leys line, and a shared surname alone proves nothing about ancestry.