The Brechin Raid of 1747

When Jacobites Came for the Minister

In the quiet village of Fettercairn, nestled in the Mearns of northeast Scotland, the winter of 1747 brought more than snow and frost—it delivered fear, fire, and the echo of rebellion. What happened on February 12th of that year was not a battle in the traditional sense, but a targeted raid, personal and raw, driven by vengeance and the aftershocks of a fractured kingdom.

This is the story of the Brechin Raid of 1747, a rarely told yet electrifying account of how a band of Jacobite sympathizers, still smarting from the failure of the 1745 uprising, launched a vendetta against the village and its most prominent loyalist—the parish minister, Reverend Anthony Dow.