Thomas Buchan maintained links with the Stuart exiles and played a small role in the 1715 Rising but escaped punishment and died at Fyvie in 1724.
11 Facts About Thomas Buchan
1.
2.
Thomas Buchan was the third son of James Buchan of Auchmacoy in Aberdeenshire and Margaret, daughter of Alexander Seton of Pitmedden, both members of the tiny Scottish Catholic minority.
3.
Many Brigade officers were Scottish or English political exiles, and Thomas Buchan later claimed he was instructed to join by James in order to balance this.
4.
The vast majority defected to William, but Thomas Buchan remained loyal like most Catholic officers and accompanied James first into exile and then to Ireland in 1689.
5.
The strategic issue facing all Jacobite commanders, whether Dundee, Cannon or Thomas Buchan was that a Scottish rising needed external support and thus access to a port.
6.
Effective Jacobite resistance ceased with the surrender of Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth and Thomas Buchan took refuge in Lochaber where he was sheltered by the MacDonald chief Glengarry.
7.
Thomas Buchan carried the blame for the failure of the 1690 campaign and never held command again; in 1703, he was allowed to return home under a general amnesty but remained in contact with the exiled Stuarts and in 1707 surveyed the defences of Inverness at the request of Jacobite agent Nathaniel Hooke.
8.
Thomas Buchan offered his services during the 1715 Jacobite rising and was briefly forced into exile again before returning home in 1717.
9.
Thomas Buchan died at his wife's home of Fyvie in 1724.
10.
In 1704, Thomas Buchan married Elizabeth Urquhart, widow of Sir George Gordon, 9th of Gight, another member of the Catholic minority.
11.
Thomas Buchan died in 1710 and they had no children.