Coupar Angus is a town in Perth and Kinross beside the River Isla. It lies in the centre of the fertile Valley of Strathmore around halfway between Perth and Dundee. The early history of Coupar can be traced to the founding of a Cistercian Abbey by King Malcolm IV in the twelfth century. By the sixteenth century it was said to be one of the wealthiest abbeys in Scotland. The significant market town of Coupar Angus grew up nearby.
Donald Campbell, the last Abbot of Coupar was an important individual. He sat in Parliament and was one of the twenty who composed the secret Council of the Regent, the Earl of Arran, and later served as Lord Privy Seal to Queen Mary. Campbell’s successor in control of the Abbey was a secular leader, Leonard Leslie. Leslie also sat in Parliament and was elected to the Lords of the Articles.
In 1606, an Act of Parliament was passed dissolving the Abbacy, which in 1607 was erected into a temporal lordship and barony in favour of James Elphinstone, son of Lord Balmerino. Elphinstone was also awarded the title Lord Coupar and made a Lord of Parliament, taking the Abbey of Coupar as one of his family seats. Lord Coupar appears to have been diligent in his duties to the realm. He regularly sat in Parliament and was also present during the ratification of the controversial religious bill, The Five Articles of Perth in 1621. Coupar sided with the Covenanters in the civil wars with King Charles I. This attracted the attention of the Royalist commander in Scotland, the Marquis of Montrose, who in 1645 gave orders to his soldiers to wreck and plunder the Coupar estate.
In 1669, James Ogilvy, 2nd Earl of Airlie, appears to have bought the lands and barony of Coupar from his daughter Marion Ogilvy, Lady Coupar, widow of the late Lord Coupar. The Ogilvy of Airlie family had a long association with Coupar. They had held the office of Hereditary Bailie of the Regality of the Abbey of Coupar. The Ogilvy family only held Coupar for a short time, however, before the barony returned to the Elphinstones.
John, 4th Lord Balmerino, was noted as a lawyer and member of Parliament. His son James, 5th Lord Balmerino, also studied at the bar and was appointed a Lord of Session. Arthur, 6th Lord Balmerino, was an active participant in the Risings of 1715 and 1745. With the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie, he was given the command of a troop of Life Guards.
Following defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Elphinstone was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was tried and beheaded on Tower Hill along with the Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromartie. His estates were confiscated. They were later purchased by a relative, James Stuart, 8th Earl of Moray, one of the Representative Peers for Scotland. Coupar continued to be held by the Stuarts into the twentieth century. The current Baron of Coupar descends from both the Elphinstones and the Ogilvys of Airlie.
