Clan Menzies

History

The Menzies name is generally traced to Mesnières, near Rouen in Normandy, and the family's first recorded appearance in Scotland comes with Robert de Meyners, who was at the court of Alexander II in the early thirteenth century and rose to become Chamberlain of Scotland around 1249. Through this office he was granted lands in Glen Lyon and Atholl, giving the family its first foothold in the central Highlands.

His son Alexander built on that start, adding the lands of Strathtay and Weem and marrying a daughter of the Stewart family. Over the following generations the Menzies pushed further into Highland Perthshire, holding ground around Loch Tay, Loch Rannoch and Glen Lyon, and became one of the settled landed families of the district rather than newcomers.

Comrie Castle, on the River Lyon, served as the family's earliest seat until fire took it in 1487. The eighth chief, Sir Robert Menzies, answered by beginning a replacement at Weem the next year; that house did not last either, burned in 1502 during a quarrel with a neighbour over the lands of Fortingall and Rannoch, with early clan records lost in the blaze. The Crown intervened on the family's behalf: James IV had the Menzies lands raised into a free barony in 1510, after which the chief took the style Menzies of that Ilk and the newly built house became known as Castle Menzies.

The Jacobite risings split the clan rather than uniting it. In 1715 the chief was a boy of nine, and his regent kept the clan out of the rising, though Menzies of Culdares, Bolfracks and Shian took up arms for the Stuart cause on their own account; Jacobite forces occupied Castle Menzies that year regardless. In 1745 the chief again stayed neutral, but the clan itself was "out" under Menzies of Shian, who paid for it with his life, and the castle was occupied once more, briefly by Prince Charles Edward Stuart on his way to Culloden and then, within days, garrisoned by the Duke of Cumberland's government troops.

The direct Menzies of Weem line ran out not long after, and the chiefship stood vacant for decades: the Menzies baronetcy became extinct on the death of Sir Neil Menzies in 1910, and no chief was recognised again until 1957, when the Court of the Lord Lyon confirmed Ronald Steuart Menzies of Culdares in the title. That same year, the newly revived Menzies Clan Society, first founded in 1892, bought the by then near-derelict Castle Menzies for under £300 and began the long work of restoring it, work that continued into the 1990s with support that included grants from what is now Historic Environment Scotland.

Castle Menzies today draws visitors rather than housing the chief: it holds Category A listed status and is looked after by the Menzies Charitable Trust. The current chief, Robert Menzies of Menzies, succeeded his father David Steuart Menzies of Menzies on the latter's death in 2023, continuing a chiefship re-established from Culdares stock less than seventy years before.