Danish Link With Scotland

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 5

Danish Link With Scotland

(Specially written for "The Press’ 1 by R. T. WEARNE; NOT many know that a Danish princess is buried in New Zealand. Her grave is in St., Ninian’s Presbyterian churchyard, Avondale, Auckland, and the inscription on the tombstone reads. Sacred to the memory of Jessie Eva Hort Huxham, the Princess Torquil of Denmark. Baroness Mac Corquodale of Loch Tromley, Chieftainess of the Clan Mac Corquodale, and wife of The Rev. Alexander McKenzie, M.A., B.D. Died April 12, 1887. Aged 28 years. The death of their 13 month son is recorded five months later.

Many inquiries have been made, both locally and overseas, in an attempt to explain her connexion with the Danish Royal Family, and as a result it has been found that the Highland sept of McCorkindale, was founded by a Danish Prince named Torquil. Torquil is traditionally stated to have been a member of the Army under Kenneth the Great.

King Alpin was killed in i battle and his head fixed on a spike and exhibited at Falkirk in 839.

King Kenneth then offered a reward of lands to anyone who would recover the head. Torquil, the Dane, brought the head to the king and was rewarded by a charter of lands on Loch Airside. Hence the Danish link with Scotland.

The story commonly believed is that Mr McKenzie was the Princess’s tutor. He married her and brought her to New Zealand. Mr McKenzie was minister at St. Ninian’s from 1885 to 1887.

The Duke and Duchess of York placed a-wreath on the grave in 1902; so did the Prince of Wales in 1920, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, as Duke and Duchess of York, in 1927, and the Duke of Gloucester in 19-35.

A former minister at St. Ninian’s, the Rev. J. H. Combes writing from Bridgend Manse, Perth, Scotland on February 22, 1960, says that the clan to which the Princess belonged has now been reconstituted, and has registered its tartan.