Clan Buchanan
also Clan Buchanan
House of the canon — guardians of the Loch Lomond shore.
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Clan Buchanan
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Clan Buchanan.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →Motto
Clarior hinc honos
— Hence the brighter honour
What does the Buchanan name mean?
From the Gaelic Buth-Chananaich — 'house of the canon' — referring to the lands on the east shore of Loch Lomond, near Killearn, that were held by the chief in the 13th century. The Buchanans of Buchanan claim descent from Anselan O'Cathan, an Ulster prince said to have settled in the Lennox in the 11th century after the Battle of Clontarf; the more solidly documented chiefly line begins with Gilbert of Buchanan in the early 13th century. The clan's territory was the strategically vital strip of country between Loch Lomond and the river Forth — the doorway between the Highlands and the Lowlands.
The history of Clan Buchanan
The Buchanans were among the smaller Highland clans by extent but tightly bound to the Lennox earls and, through them, to the Crown. They fought for Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314, for the Scottish crown at Flodden in 1513, and (under Sir George Buchanan) for the Covenant in the 17th century. The chiefly line failed in the male line in 1762 with the death of the 22nd Laird, and the clan went without a chief for 254 years — the longest such gap in major Scottish clan history — until John Michael Baillie-Hamilton Buchanan was recognised by the Lord Lyon as the 33rd Chief in 2018.
George Buchanan (1506–1582), the Killearn-born scholar, was tutor to the young James VI of Scotland and one of the foremost Latin poets and political theorists of Renaissance Europe — his De Iure Regni apud Scotos (1579) was a foundational text of resistance theory in Calvinist Europe. James Buchanan (1791–1868), the 15th President of the United States, was descended from a Stony Batter, Pennsylvania-Buchanan emigrant family from Ramelton in north Donegal — Ulster-Scots-Buchanans whose immediate origin was Stirlingshire-Buchanan stock. Jack Buchanan (1890–1957), the Helensburgh-born musical-theatre star, was the West End's answer to Fred Astaire.
Notable bearers of the Buchanan name
- George Buchanan (1506–1582) — humanist scholar, tutor to James VI
- James Buchanan (1791–1868) — 15th President of the United States
- Jack Buchanan (1890–1957) — musical-theatre star
- Pat Buchanan (b. 1938) — American political commentator