Francis Buchanan of Arnprior

Francis Buchanan of Arnprior was the son of Robert Buchanan of Arnprior, advocate, and his second wife Margaret Muirhead (Smith, Strathendrick and Its Inhabitants, p. 301). He married Elizabeth Buchanan of Leny, with whom he had no children. The circumstances of Arnprior's involvement in the Rising and his subsequent conviction are more complicated than the narrative presented in the Lyon in Mourning. While Arnprior claimed no direct involvement, various accounts have him receiving funds and storing weapons for the Jacobite army (Mounsey in Waugh, Occupation of Carlisle, p. 257; McDonell, Jacobites of Perthshire, p. 4). Whether or not he bore arms himself, he did force his two younger brothers and several residents in the vicinity of Callander to join the Rising (Mounsey in Waugh, Occupation of Carlisle, p. 253; Layne, "Spines of the Thistle," p. 196). While the suspicious death of Alexander Stewart of Glenbuckie may have prejudiced the court, it was far from the only stain on Arnprior's character; he was also alleged to have "poisoned a gentleman of his own name whose estate he succeeded to," of "debauching first one then another sister of his wife," and having a generally "oppressive temper to those in his neighbourhood, and under his authority" (letter from John Goldie to John Waugh, quoted in Waugh, Occupation of Carlisle, pp. 265-66). It is true that Arnprior was targeted for punishment, by reason of his status and influence (letter from Andrew Fletcher to Philip Carteret Webb, NA SP 54/33/23b, cited in Layne, "Spines of the Thistle," p. 206). Brothers Thomas and Patrick, being young and not having acted of their own free will, were acquitted (Mounsey in Waugh, Occupation of Carlisle, pp. 253, 257).