Coming down the stream of time, we find that Wallace, that noble and disinterested patriot, sought a hiding-place in time of danger amid its dense woods. During a visit to Perth in 1296, a plot was laid by the English to capture him, but, having received timely warning, he made his escape with his small band of followers to Gascon Ha'. This is generally supposed to have occupied a different site from the ruin near the River Earn which now bears that name, and which is celebrated by Lady Nairne in the song of "Bonnie Gascon Ha'." The Gascon Ha' to which Wallace repaired for safety from his treacherous and relentless enemies is said to have stood a mile and a half to the north-east of that ruin in the midst of the Gask woods. Here they prepared to pass the night, and having obtained two sheep from a neighbouring fold, they kindled a fire and made ready their evening repast. Greatly exhausted with their long and fatiguing march, Wallace proposed that his followers should rest while he would keep watch. During the course of the night he was startled by the "blowing of horns mingled with frightful yells, proceeding apparently from a rising ground in the immediate neighbourhood." Scouts were sent out from time to time, but all failing to return, the patriot was at last left alone. He wandered about till morning, killing two of the English whom he encountered, one of whom was Sir John Butler, and then hastened with all speed to Torwood, near Dunipace, where his uncle was parish priest.
At an early period the lands now comprehended in this parish belonged to the Earl of Strathearn, the great landowner in this district at that time. It is said that he possessed all the lands lying between the Cross of Macduff, near Newburgh, and the west end of Balquhidder in length, and between the Ochils and the Grampians in breadth. It was out of his lands of Nether Gask that he granted liberty to quarry stones for building the Abbey of Inchaffray, along with two acres of ground on which to erect workshops.
The lands of Gask have now been in the possession of the Oliphant family for nearly six hundred years. The name was originally written Olifard, then Olyfaunt, and now Oliphant. Sir William Olyfaunt was the first of that name on whom these lands were bestowed by King Robert the Bruce. Sir William occupied a prominent position in the early history of our country. He was Governor of Stirling Castle, and when summoned in the name of Edward I. to surrender it, made the noble reply, "I have never sworn fealty to Edward, but I have sworn to keep the Castle, and must wait the order of my constituent." And when the Castle was besieged by Edward and his army he defended it for three months, and only capitulated from the scarcity of provisions. He was a member of the Parliament held at Aberbrothock in 1320, and subscribed along with some other Scottish Barons the famous letter to the Pope, which so nobly asserted the independence of Scotland. To that document were affixed the seals of Sir William Olyfaunt and Malise, Earl of Strathearn. He died in 1329, and was buried in the Church of Aberdalgie, where a monument of black marble was erected to his memory. When the present Church of Aberdalgie was built in 1773 the site was changed, and the monument to Sir William Olyfaunt was left in the open churchyard. In 1780, Mr Oliphant of Gask erected a stone covering over it to protect it from injury by the weather.
Sir William was succeeded by his son, Walter Olyfaunt, who married a daughter of King Robert the Bruce, and, "having resigned the lands of Gask into the hands of his brother-in-law, David II., obtained, in 1364, a new charter confirming them to the said Walter and his spouse Elizabeth, our beloved sister, on a peculiar tenure for the reddendum of a chaplet of white roses at the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist at the manor place of Gask." This incident has been happily expressed in a poem by Miss Ethel Blair Oliphant, now Mrs Maxtone Graham, who inherits much of the poetic genius of her great-grand-aunt, Lady Nairne.
THE TRIBUTE OF GASK
Now ken ye the gift Gask has brought to the King?
'Tis an off'ring sae royal, sae perfect, and fair,
Than jewels o' siller more dainty and rare,
A crown for a maid or a monarch to wear.
The courtier's tribute is but a poor thing,
For what can he offer and what can he bring,
Than the crown of White Roses from Gask to the King?
Now ken ye the service Gask does for the King?
All for his sake, in the bloom of the year,
In the gardens of Gask the white blossoms appear—
The Royal White Roses to Scotland sae dear.
Then far o'er Stralhearn let the praise of them ring,
Let them live once again in the song that we sing,
The crown of White Roses from Gask to the King.
Now ken ye what Gask will yet do for the King?
In the days that may come, when the roses are dead,
When the pledge is forgotten, the vows left unsaid;
What then shall lie found for an off'ring instead?
Oh! then at his feet his heart he will fling.
Truth, Honour, Devotion, as tribute will bring
For the crown of White Roses from Gask to the King!
This charter, which has always been highly prized by the Gask family, had a rather singular history during the last century. In 1746 the Duke of Cumberland sent out Sir Joseph York from Perth to search the House of Gask, when he took away a box containing the charter, and it was not till forty years after that it was traced to its hiding-place, restored to its rightful owners, and safely deposited in the Gask charter chest. The Oliphants obtained large estates in different parts of Scotland, and were raised to the Peerage by James II., in 1450, by the title of Lord Oliphant. The fifth Lord, styled in the Gask papers "ane base and unworthy man," squandered away the large estates he inherited not only in Perthshire, but also in Forfarshire, Kincardine, Caithness, and Haddington. One of the younger branches of the Oliphant family purchased from his spendthrift cousin the lands of Gask, which have ever since continued in the same family.
Laurence Oliphant was, in the year 1650, knighted by Charles II., when that monarch was at Scone. He for a capricious reason disinherited his eldest son, Patrick, and gave the lands of Gask to his second son and his heirs. About fifty years thereafter the estate of Gask, from the failure of heirs in the younger branch, came into the possession of James, the eldest son of the disinherited Patrick.