Traditionally, though not proven, it is assumed that there are members of the family who migrated to Scotland during its many Clan Wars with England. These wars started when MacBeth was defeated and slain in 1056 by Malcolm III. Malcolm III thought he could increase his control of the British Isle and invaded the North of England. William the Conqueror invaded Scotland in retaliation in 1072, only a year after the founding of Richmond Castle by Alan Rufus de Richmond. It can be assumed that Alan would have led at least part of the attack since he was a cousin and warlord of the Norman Conqueror. Malcolm quickly agreed to a truce, but there was some disagreement of its terms. The Normans claimed control of all of Scotland, while the Scots said it pertained to only twelve manors in England proper. This led to another war in which William Rufus slew the Scottish King Malcolm in 1093. Then in 1189 for a sum of 10,000 marks, Richard the Lion Hearted, the then English Monarch, agreed to cease all claims to former Scottish lands in order to finance his great Crusade to free the Holy Land from the Muslim ruler Saladin. These were the days of Robin Hood of story and myth. Surely Richmonds were on this third great crusade as leaders and knights of England. The habit of awarding feudal lands may have left some of Alan Rufus' children in control of lands in Scotland at the time of its return to the Scots.

William the Lion thus became heir to the Scottish throne. His son Alexander II succeeded William, who was followed by Alexander the III. He died in 1286 leaving his main heir as Margaret, daughter of the King of Norway. She died in passage from there by ship and a feud started between John Balliol and Robert the Bruce for the Crown of Scotland. Edward I of England intervened and helped Balliol gain control leading to the Wars depicted in the movie “Braveheart,” where Sir William Wallace of Elerslie was cruelly drawn and quartered by the English King Edward in 1305. Robert Bruce the III continued the struggle and rioted the English at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Bruce died in 1329 and a new war erupted in which the Scots at last gave up the struggle to claim their own land independent of England. During this time and for the next 200 years the Crown of England was shared by English and Scot alike, the most famous the Stuarts. During these years prominent English (Norman and Saxon) families controlled large estates in Scotland and thus it would only be logical to have sent some of sons of the influential Richmond families to Scotland.

During the fourth Crusade, the European Knights sacked the Christian city of Constantinople. This led to a split between the Catholic Church -- Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Catholics. The split started many Christians to questioning which was the real Church. The debate over the next 200 years led to the Spanish Inquisition and Protestant reform movements. By the 1600's the struggle was dramatic as to which was the best religion. Charles I of England offended most Protestants of English and Scottish parishes by forcing them to uphold church ritual and to use a formal prayer book. In 1637 Charles tried to force the Scottish Presbyterians to accept a version of the Anglican Prayer Book. A Scottish Revolt erupted thus Charles sent in the British Cavaliers to quail it by any method necessary including public execution. To pay for his troops in Scotland, Charles called the Parliament into session and ordered them to appropriate taxes. This led to the English Civil War, which led to Charles' trial and execution. It also led to the death of Henry Richmond at the hands of his brother John Richmond of Taunton Massachusetts.

Many Presbyterians settlers banished from Scotland and England for religious reasons and fled to Ireland where they remained only long enough to find passage to America or Australia. The Scotland Richmonds who fled Europe because of religious freedom settled in the southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Georgia. North Carolina historians claim more than 20,000 Highland Scots immigrants arrived in North Carolina territory in the mid 1700’s.

In Scotland in the late 1600’s we find a John “Richmon” who, with several other men who were killed as religious martyrs. A stone dedicated to the memory of these men killed between 1666-1688 stands in a Glasgow churchyard. A “list of the banished” during the same period for Finich parish in Ayrshire named a David Currie and John Wylie. Andrew Richmond is also listed from the nearby parish of Auchinleck.

It seems more than mere coincidence that Richmond, Currie and Wylie families are found intermarrying in America only a generation after men of the same name were banished from Scotland. An Andrew Richmond settled in Maryland about 1704 and died there two years later. A John Richmond died in the same section of Maryland in 1734. Another John Richmond died in Augusta County, Virginia in 1753. John Richmond Sr. is said to have settled in Mecklenburg County, Virginia in 1725. The will of the same John Richmond Sr. was dated February 27, 1786/87 in Caswell County, North Carolina. One of the problems in tracing these lines is that a dozen or more John Richmonds lived in Virginia in the early 1700’s and it is often difficult to determine which John Richmond is referenced in the records.

All of the Richmonds of Scotland did not migrate at that time however, Archibald Murray Richmond born in 1828 at Auchinleck, Scotland and came to the U.S. just prior to the American Civil War, arriving during the late 1850's. Donald C. Richmond, a descendant of Archibald, traveled to Scotland and visited a cemetery at Old Comnock, Ayrshire, where he found many Richmond names.