A legal battle over a DNA test could be about to ignite one of the most sensational scandals in modern British aristocratic history, pitting a Northamptonshire tradesman against one of the country's wealthiest landowners.
Robbie Calder, a 65-year-old asphalt and roofing company owner from Kettering, is taking the extraordinary step of legally compelling Richard Montagu Douglas Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, to provide a DNA sample. Calder claims the two men are blood relatives, connected by not one, but two clandestine affairs that crossed rigid class boundaries and, he alleges, involved incest.
The Explosive Allegations
Calder's claims centre on events in the late 1930s. He is convinced his late mother was the illegitimate daughter of a teenage affair between his grandmother, Andrina, a maid at one of the Buccleuch family estates, and the then Earl of Dalkeith, John Montagu Douglas Scott, who would later become the 9th Duke of Buccleuth.
The Earl was not yet 16 years old in 1939 when Andrina, also believed to be in her teens, allegedly gave birth. The space for the father's name on the birth certificate was left blank.
The story, however, takes a more shocking turn. Calder alleges that the young aristocrat and the maid were unknowingly half-brother and half-sister, the product of a similar Downton Abbey-style dalliance between a member of the aristocracy and a servant in the previous generation.
"They didn't know it - couldn't have known it - but they were half-brother and sister," Calder told the Daily Mail.
A Tale of Two Lives
The potential connection highlights a stark contrast in British society. The 10th Duke of Buccleuch, 71, is one of Britain's richest men, with an estimated wealth of £213 million. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he owns around 215,000 acres across southern Scotland and four ancestral homes, including the magnificent Boughton House in Northamptonshire. In 2023, King Charles appointed him Chancellor of the Order of the Thistle.
In sharp contrast, Robbie Calder has run his company, Kettering Asphalt, since 1981, specialising in driveways and flat roofing. He lives in a modest house in a Northamptonshire village, a world away from the inherited opulence of the Duke.
The Quest for Proof
Calder's conviction stems from a key event: the 1983 funeral of his mother. He claims a wheelchair-bound man, who he believes was the 9th Duke, attended the service in Edinburgh. "He smiled at me but we didn't speak," Calder recalled.
He says he was later offered a meeting with the Duke through a mutual acquaintance but, unaware of the potential connection at the time, did not pursue it. The 9th Duke had been paralysed in a 1971 horse-riding accident.
After years of unanswered attempts to contact the current Duke, Calder has now begun formal legal proceedings. He has submitted a plea to the Selkirk Sheriff Court "to serve a request to the [Duke] to provide DNA".
For Calder, the truth is a matter of personal history and tragedy. He believes the weight of the family secret contributed to the early deaths of his mother and her two sisters, none of whom lived to see their 44th birthday.
"I have nothing against the Duke," Calder stated. "I just want to know the truth. Anyone in my position would."
The outcome now rests on a simple swab. The test could either lay the decades-old story to rest or genetically confirm a shared bloodline, forcing one of Britain's most prominent aristocratic families to confront a deeply buried secret.
