ARMORIAL BEARINGS OF THE CHIEFS
Highland CLANS of
<$COtland: Their History and
Traditions. By George £yre-Todd
With an Introduction by A. M. MACKINTOSH
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
INCLUDING REPRODUCTIONS OF MEAN'S CELEBRATED
PAINTINGS OP THE COSTUMES OF THE CLANS
VOLUME ONE
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK MCMXXIII
If, I
FBINTBD IN GREAT BRITAIN
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD ........ ix
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . XI
THE HIGHLAND CLANS ...... I
CLAN BUCHANAN ....... 8
CLAN CAMERON ....... l8
CLAN CAMPBELL ....... 26
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE . . . . 36
CLAN CHISHOLM ....... 45
CLAN COLQUHOUN ....... 52
CLAN COMYN ........ 59
CLAN DAVIDSON . . . . . . -67
CLAN DRUMMOND ....... 74
CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON . . . . .84
CLAN FARLAN ........ 91
CLAN FARQUHARSON ....... 99
CLAN FERGUS ........ 106
CLAN FORBES ........ IJ2
CLAN FRASE.R ........ 122
CLAN GORDON ........ 132
CLAN GRAHAM ........ 143
CLAN GRANT ........ 153
CLAN GRANT OF GLENMORISTON . . . . . l6l
CLAN GREGOR . . . . . . . . 166
CLAN GUNN , . . . . . . . 173
CLAN LAMONT . . . . . . . -179
CLAN LINDSAY . . . . . . . .187
vi CONTENTS
PAG*
CLAN LOGAN ........ 2OO
CLAN MACALASTAIR ....... 205
CLAN MACARTHUR . . . . . . . 2O8
CLAN MACAULAY . . . . . . . 214
CLAN MACBEAN . . . . . . . 2l8
CLAN MACCRIMMON ....... 224
CLAN MACCOLL . . .' . . . . 22<>
THE MACDONALDS OP THE ISLES . . . . 232
THE MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD . . . . . 244
THE MACDONALDS OP GLENCOE ..... 252
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Armorial Bearings ..... Frontispiece
Mosaic of Charlemagne .... Facing page x
Buchanan . . . . . „ ,,8
Loch Lomond Shore at Balmaha . . „ ,,12
Cameron . . . . . „ „ 18
River Arkaig . ....„„ 22
Achnacarry . . . . . „ ,,24
Campbell . . . . . „ ,,26
Inisconnel, Loch Awe . . . „ „ 38
Inveraray Castle . . . . „ „ 32
Campbell of Breadalbane . . . •-••'-« » 3*>
Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy . „ „ 40
Taymouth Castle Gates, Kenmore . . „ ,,42
Chisholm . . . . . „ ,,44
Colquhoun . . . . . „ „ 52
Dunglass Castle . . . . „ •• 54
Luss Pier and the Straits of Luss . . „ „ 56
Comyn „ 58
Comyn, Lord of Kilbride . . . „ ,,62
Davidson . . . . . „ ,,66
Tulloch Castle, Dingwall . . . „ „ 70
Drummond . . . . . „ n 74
Duncan or Robertson . . . „ ,,84
The Cumberland Stone on Culloden Moor „ ,,86
Parian oo
Eilean-a-Vow Castle . . . . „ „ 94
Farquharson . . . . . „ „ 08
Old Bridge of Dee .....„„ 102
Fergus „ 106
Forbes . . . . . . „ „ 112
Castle Forbes . . . . . „ „ 116
vii
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frascr . . »'.'••>"> • •
Gordon . . . . . .-•-,„ ,,132
Huntly Castle . . . . . ,, „ i38
Graham ......„„ 142
The Great Marquess of Montrose . „ ,,148
Mugdock Castle . . . . . „ „ 150
Grant ..... . „ „ 152
Entrance Hall, Castle Grant . . . „ ,,156
Grant of Glenmoriston ....„„ 160
Gregor ......'.„„ 106
Edinchip, Balquhidder . . . „ „ 168
Glengyle House . . . . „ „ 170
Gunn .......„„ 172
Lament ......„„ 178
Toward Castle . . . . „ „ 182
Logan . . . . . . „ „ 200
MacAlastair ......„„ 204
Saddell Castle . . . . . • „ ,,206
MacArthur ......„„ 208
MacAulay . . . . . „ „ 214
Row on the Gareloch . . . „ ,,216
MacBean . . . . . „ • „ 218
MacCrimmon . . . . . . „ „ 224
MacDonald of the Isles . * . „ „ 232
Barochan Cross . . . • ' •, „ „ 236
MacDonald of Clanranald . . . , . „ „ 244
MacDonald of Glencoe . . » „ „ 252
The Governor's House, Fort William . „ „ 254
Olencoe . » : .' . „ 256
FOREWORD
THOUGH the Scottish Highlander is proverbially tenacious
of the memories of his race, and almost invariably well-
informed regarding the descent and relationship of his
clan, there has hitherto been a notorious lack of collected
information regarding the individual histories and tradi-
tions of the Highland tribes. Of several of the clans
there are admirable monographs in existence, and for the
general history of the Gael one may consult books like
Skene's Celtic Scotland and Browne's History of
the Highlands; but in the way of a collection of
histories of the separate clans nothing sufficiently detailed
has been available. The present work is designed to
supply in convenient shape information regarding each
clan which is only to be found in widely scattered quarters
elsewhere. On thorny points, like the chiefship of the
MacDonalds, the headship of Clan Chattan, and the
relationship of the MacArthurs and the Campbells, it is
hoped that the facts have been stated without bias. It
is hoped also that, while it would be impossible, within
even a generous compass, to furnish complete narratives
of all that is known of each clan, the net has been cast
sufficiently wide to include all events of real importance,
and to show their relationship, causes, and effects in a
reasoned narrative. ,With only a very few alterations the
list of septs put forward by Mr. Frank Adams in his
excellent compendium of the Highland Clans, Septs, and
Regiments has been adopted, and it is hoped that the
reproduction of the spirited colour prints from Mclan's
celebrated Clans of the Scottish Highlands, now almost
unobtainable, will add a further feature of interest.
GEORGE EYRE-TODD.
ix
FROM THE MOSAIC OF CHARLEMAGNE FORMED IN THE CHURCH
OF ST. SUSAN BY ORDER OF POPE LEO III., SHEWING THE UNI-
VERSALITY OF THE TUNIC OR KlLT AMONG EUROPEAN NATIONS
IN EARLY TIMES.
Facing page x.
INTRODUCTION
FOR some time past there have been signs of a
reawakening of interest in all matters pertaining to the
Highlands, and Mr Eyre-Todd has taken up the task of
meeting a wide demand which has arisen for information
as to the origins and fortunes of the various clans and
their principal families. At present the only book
claiming to give a comprehensive view of this subject is
Mclan's Clans of the Scottish Highlands, but that
work, published three-quarters of a century ago, is rarely
met with and is valuable mainly on account of its pictures.
Since it appeared the horizon of inquiry has been
considerably widened by the publication of documents
from the national archives and the charter chests of
private families, and many of the spurious pedigrees and
absurdities of earlier writers, such as Douglas in his
Baronage of Scotland, have been swept away, though
they will no doubt continue to be quoted by superficial
writers. In Celtic Scotland (1880) the late Dr W. F.
Skene devoted a chapter and part of the Appendix to the
clans and their genealogies, and his conclusions are often
accepted as final and authoritative ; but he is by no means
a safe guide, on account of his fatal propensity for setting
up theories on insufficient foundations, and his blind
devotion to the MS. of 1467. His previous work,
The Highlanders of Scotland (1837), 1S practically
thrown overboard in Celtic Scotland, and may be
ignored by the modern student (except perhaps with the
notes in Dr Macbain's edition of 1902). In the present
xi
xii INTRODUCTION
century several books of more or less authority giving
histories of individual clans have appeared, but no
serious attempt had been made to deal with the clans
generally until Mr Eyre-Todd boldly essayed the gigantic
task. He brings to this task an open mind and good
judgment, and the readers of his pages, whether agreeing
with him or not in every detail — and he may expect
considerable disagreement — cannot but feel that he has
been animated by a sincere desire to get at the truth of
things, and that on the whole he has treated his subject
in a fair and sympathetic manner. I wish him every
success.
A. M. MACKINTOSH.
August, 1923.
THE HIGHLAND CLANS
IT is now well understood that the Celts originally came
out of the east. Guest, in his Origines Celticoe
describes the routes by which they streamed across Europe
and along the north coast of Africa in a bygone century.
The migration did not stop till it had reached the shores
of the Atlantic. The Celtic flood was followed within the
Christian era by the migrations of succeeding races —
Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, these variously called
themselves — and before the successive waves the Celts
were driven against the western coast, like the fringe of foam
driven up by wind and tide upon a beach. This process
was seen in our own islands when the British inhabitants
were driven westward by the oncoming waves of Saxons,
Angles, and Danes in the fifth and following centuries.
Thus driven against the western shores these Celts were
known, down to the Norman Conquest, as the Britons or
Welsh of Strathclyde, of Wales, and of West Wales or
Cornwall.
In the north, beyond the Forth and among the
mountain fastnesses, as well as in the south of Galloway,
the Celtic race continued to hold its own. By the Roman
chroniclers the tribes there were known as the Caledonians
or Picts. Between the Forth and the Grampians were the
Southern Picts, north of the Grampians were the Northern
Picts, and in Galloway were the Niduarian Picts. To
which branch of the Celtic race, British or Gaelic, or a
separate branch by themselves, the Picts belonged, is not
now known. From the fact that after the Roman legions
were withdrawn they made fierce war upon the British
tribes south of the Forth, it seems likely that they were
not British. Dr. W. F. Skene, in his Highlanders of
Scotland, took elaborate pains to prove that the Picts were
Gaelic, an earlier wave of the same race as the Gaels or
Scots who then peopled Ireland, at that time known as
Scotia.
Exactly how these Scots came into the sister isle is not
now known. According to their own tradition they
derived their name from Scota, daughter of one of the
Pharoahs, whom one of their leaders married as they
passed westward through Egypt, and it is possible they
VOL. i. i A
2 THE HIGHLAND CLANS
may be identified with the division of the Celtic tribes
which passed along the north coast of Africa. According
to Gaelic tradition the Scots migrated from Spain to the
south of Ireland. According to the same tradition they
brought with them the flat brown stone, about nine inches
thick, known as the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, on
which their kings were crowned, and which was said to
have been Jacob's pillow at Bethel on the plain of Luz.
From Ireland they began to cross into Kintyre — the
" Headland " — in the sixth century. Their three leaders
were Fergus, Lorn, and Angus, sons of Ere, and their
progress was not always a matter of peaceful settlement.
Fergus, for instance, made a landing in Ayrshire, and
defeated and slew Coyle the British king of the district,
whose tumulus is still to be seen at Coylesfield, and whose
name is still commemorated as that of the region, Kyle,
and in popular rhymes about " Old King Cole."
In Kintyre and the adjoining neighbourhood the
invaders established the little Dalriadic kingdom, so
called from their place of origin in the north-east of
Ireland, Dal-Riada, the " Portion of Riada," conquered
in the third century by Fergus's ancestor, Cairbre-Riada,
brother of Cormac, an Irish King. They had their first
capital at Dun-add near the present Crinan Canal, and
from their possession the district about Loch Awe took the
name of Oire-Gaidheal, or Argyll, the " Land of the Gael.v
These settlers were Christian, and the name of their
patron saint, Kiaran, remains in Kilkiaran, the old name
of Campbeltown, Kil-kiaran in Islay, Kilkiaran in Lismore,
and Kilkerran in Carrick, which last, curiously enough,
is a possession of the Fergusons at the present hour. The
invasion, however, received one of its strongest impulses
from a later missionary. Columba crossed from Ireland
and settled in lona in the year 563, and very soon, with his
followers, began a great campaign of Christian conversion
among the Northern Picts. The Picts and early Britons,
as is shown by their monuments and the folk-customs they
have handed down to us, were worshippers of Baal and
Ashtaroth. Columba's conversion of Brud, king of the
Northern Picts at his stronghold at Inverness, opened up
the whole country to the Gaelic influence. By and by
marriages took place between the Pictish and the Gaelic
royal houses, and these led, in the ninth century, to dis-
putes over the succession to the Pictish crown. In the
struggle which followed, Alpin, king of the Scots, was
beheaded by the Picts on Dundee Law, in sight of his own
host. But the whole matter was finally decided by the
THE HIGHLAND CLANS 3
victory of Alpin's son, Kenneth II., over the last Pictish
army, in the year 838, at the spot called Cambuskenneth
after the event, on the bank of the Forth near Stirling.
Six years later Kenneth succeeded to the Pictish throne.
The history of these early centuries is to be gathered
from Adamnan's Life of Columba, the Annals of Tigher-
nac, the Annals of Ulster, the Albanach Dvan, Bede's
Chronicle, and other works.
By that time another warlike race had made its appear-
ance on the western coasts. At their first coming, the
Dalriads or Scots from Ireland had been known as
Gallgael — Gaelic strangers. The new piratical visitors
who now appeared from the eastern shores of the North
Sea, received the name of Fion-gall or " fair-haired
strangers." Worshippers of Woden and Thor, they
proved at first fierce and bitter enemies to the Christian
Picts and Gaels, slaying the monks of lona on their own
altar, and even penetrating so far as to burn Dunbarton,
the capital of the Britons of Strathclyde, in the year 780.
In the face of this menace, Kenneth, in the year of his
victory over the Picts, removed the Lia Fail from his own
stronghold of Dunstaffnage on Loch Etive, to Scone on
the Tay, transferred the bones of Columba from lona to
Dunkeld, and fixed his own royal seat at the ancient
capital of the Southern Picts, Forteviot on the Earn.
This remained the capital of the Scoto-Pictish kings for
two centuries, till in 1057 Malcolm Canmore, son of the
" gracious " Duncan and the miller's daughter of
Forteviot, overthrew Macbeth, and set up the capital of
his new dynasty at Dunfermline.
Meanwhile the Norsemen overran not only the Western
Isles but much of the northern part of the country. For
a time it was an even chance whether ancient Caledonia
should become Norseland or Scotland. Under Malcolm
Canmore and his sons, however, the Scots pushed their
conquests south of the Forth, annexed Strathclyde,
Northumberland, and Westmoreland, and became a for-
midable power in the land. David I. fortified his dynasty
against attack by planting the country with Norman and
English barons and introducing the feudal system; and
the final issue with the Norsemen was fought out by the
last of his race, the last of the Celtic line of kings,
Alexander III., at the battle of Largs in 1263.
It is about this period that the traditional history of
most of the Highland clans makes a beginning. It was
long the custom to attribute the origin of all these clans to
a Gaelic source. The late Dr. W. F. Skene wrote his
4 THE HIGHLAND CLANS
book, The Highlanders of Scotland, to show that many of
the clans, particularly in the more eastern and northern
parts of the Highlands, must have been of Pictish origin.
Without going into the somewhat elaborate details of his
evidence and argument, with later modifications in his
Celtic Scotland, it may simply be said that the proposition
appears reasonable. Nor would it appear "less honourable
to be descended from the ancient Pictish race of Caledonia
than from the Scottish race which crossed the narrow seas
from Ireland. The record of the Picts includes their
magnificent and victorious struggle against the Roman
legions, their defeat of the British Arthur himself at
Camelon in 537, and the overthrow of Egcfrith of
Northumbria at Nectansmere in Fife in the year 835. But
it must be remembered that the Norse race has also con-
tributed to the origin of the clans. The names of the
ancient MacLeod chiefs — Torquil, Tormod, and the like —
would of themselves be enough to point this out ; and it
must be remembered that the wife of the mighty Somerled,
from whom all the Macdonald and several other clans are
descended, was sister of Godred the Norwegian King of
Man. It is equally certain that several clans are of
Anglian and Norman origin. The Murrays claim descent
from Freskin the Fleming. The Gordons, whether
Gordon or Seton, are Norman from the Scottish Border.
And the Macfarlanes, cadets of the older Earls of Lennox,
are of Northumbrian, or Anglian source. Nothing could
be more interesting than the process by which families of
such various origin, in the course of a few generations
became so impregnated with the spirit of their surround-
ings as to be practically indistinguishable in instinct and
characteristics. Sir Walter Scott had the Highlanders as
a whole in view when he framed his famous and apt
description of " Gentlemen of the north, men of the south,
people of the west, and folk of Fife."
The clan system no doubt took its origin largely from
the mountainous nature of the country in which the people
found themselves, each family or tribe living in its own
glen, separate from the rest of the world, and too remote
from any capital to be interfered with by a central govern-
ment. In these circumstances, as in similar circumstances
elsewhere, Afghanistan and Arabia, for instance, the
father of the family naturally became the ruler, and when
the family grew into a tribe he became its chief. In later
days, when great combinations of related clans were
formed, the chief of the strongest branch might become
captain of the confederacy, like the Captain of Clanranald
THE HIGHLAND CLANS 5
and the Captain of Clan Chattan. The chief ship was
inherited by the eldest legitimate son, but it must be
remembered that in the Highlands the son of a " hand-
fast " union was considered legitimate, whether his parents
were afterwards married or not. Handfasting was a form
of trial marriage lasting for a year and a day. If it proved
unfruitful it could be terminated at the end of that time,
but sometimes a chief might die or be slain before his
handfast union could be regularised, and in this case his
son was still recognised as his heir. The system arose
from the urgent desirability of carrying on the direct line
of the chiefs.
Another outcome of a state of society in which the
rights and property of the tribe had constantly to be
defended by the sword was the custom of tanistry. If the
heir of a chief happened to be too young to rule the clan
or lead it in battle the nearest able-bodied relative might
succeed for the time to the chiefship. This individual was
known as the tanist. A conspicuous example of the work-
ing of the law of tanistry was the succession of Macbeth
to the crown of his uncle, King Duncan, notwithstanding
the fact that Duncan left several sons, legitimate and
illegitimate. By his right as tanist Macbeth ruled
Scotland ably and justly for seventeen years.
By writers on the customs of the clans a good deal has
been made of the so-called law of gavel. It is supposed
that under this " law " the whole property of a chief was
divided among his family at his death, and Browne, in his
History of the Highlands, accounts by the action of this
" law " for the impoverishment and loss of influence which
overtook some of the clan chiefs. By this .process, he says,
the line of the chiefs gradually became impoverished while
the senior cadet became the most powerful member of the
clan and assumed command as captain. There seems,
however, some misunderstanding here, for the law of gavel
would apply equally to the possessions of the senior cadet.
The " law " of gavel probably meant no more than this.
A chief portioned out his lands to his sons as tenants.
When his eldest son succeeded as chief, as these tenancies
fell in, he portioned out the lands in turn to his own sons
in the same way. Thus the nearest relatives of the chief
were always the men of highest rank and most influence
in the clan, while the oldest cadets, unless they had secured
their position in time by their own exertions, were apt to
find their way to the ranks of the ordinary clansmen. As
all, however, claimed descent from the house of the chief,
all prided themselves upon the rank of gentlemen, and
6 THE HIGHLAND CLANS
behaved accordingly. To this fact are owed the high and
chivalrous ideas of personal honour which have always
characterised the Scottish Highlander.
As an acknowledgment of his authority all the clansmen
paid calpe or tribute to the chief, and when outsiders —
sometimes inhabitants of a conquered district, or members
of a '* broken " clan, a clan without a head — attached
themselves to a tribe, they usually came under a bond of
manrent for offence and defence, and agreed to pay the
calpe to their adopted chief. If a clansman occupied more
than an eighth part of a davach of land, he also paid the
chief a further duty, known as herezeld. The fundamental
difference between the clan system of society and the feudal
system which was destined to supersede it, was that tfie
authority of the clan chief was based on personal and blood
relationship, while that of the feudal superior is based upon
tenure of land.
Of the origin of the Highland costume not much Is
known. The kilt is one of the primitive garments of the
world ; it is one of the healthiest and probably the hand-
somest, and there can be no question that for the active
pursuits of the mountaineer it is without a rival. In its
original form, as the belted plaid, it afforded ample
protection in all weathers, while leaving the limbs
absolutely free for the most arduous exertions. The
earliest authentic mention of the kilt appears to be that in
the Norse history of Magnus Barefoot, with whom Malcolm
Canmore made his famous treaty. According to that
document, written about the year 1097, Magnus, on
returning from his conquest of the Hebrides, adopted the
dress in use there, and went about bare-legged, having a
short tunic and also an upper garment, " and so men
called him Barefoot." Next, in the fifteenth century is
the notice by John Major, the historian, who mentions that
the Highland gentlemen of his day " wore no covering
from the middle of the thigh to the foot, clothing them-
selves with a mantle instead of an upper garment, and a
shirt dyed with saffron."
As for the tartan, in Miss Donaldson's Wanderings in
the Highlands and Islands, a proposition is made that the
numbers of colours employed had a relation to the rank of
the wearer — that eight colours were accorded to the service
of the altar, seven to the king, and so on in diminishing
number to the single dyed garment of the cumerlach or
serf. In view, however, of the fact that all the members
of a clan wear the same tartan, and that the tartans of
some of the greatest clans contain but a small number of
THE HIGHLAND CLANS 7
mlours such a theory obviously will not bear examination.
The eadfest costumes of the clansmen appear to have been
ot of tartan at all, but of plain colour, preferably saffron.
Srta n earfy references, like that of Aldhelm Bishop of
iherborne in 970, and that of Ossianwhcn describing ^ a
Caledonian woman as appearing in robes * ^J£"L
of the shower " are by no means conclusive as reternng
to artan As variety came to be desired, each clan would
use the natural dyes most easily procured nlff district
and the easiest pattern to weave was one of simple warp
and woof. By and by a clansman would come to be
fdentified by the local pattern he wore, and before long
hat patternwould come to be known as the tartan of h*
clan Whether or not this describes the actual origin of
the Highland tartans, there can be no question as to their
sukab ifity for the purposes of the hunter and the warrior,
£ whomyit was important to be as little Conspicuous as
possible on a moor or mountain-side. It was also o value
to the clansmen in battle, who required readily
distinguish between friend and foe. After the last great
Highland conflict at Culloden, it is said, the dead were
identified by their tartans, the clansmen being buried, each
with his own tribe, in the long sad trenches among ; tt
heather. To the Highlander the garb of his forefathers
has always justly counted for much Sir Walter Scott
gave immortal expression to the feeling when he mad
the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich exclaim to Jeanie
Deans " The heart of MacCailean More will be as cold
as death can make it, when it does not warm to the tartan.
CLAN BUCHANAN
BADGE : Dearcag monaidh (vaccineum uligiuosuin) Bilberry.
SLOGAN : Clairinch !
THE name of the Clan Buchanan is almost alone among
those of Highland families in being derived, not from a
personal ancestor, but from the lands on which the Clan
was settled. These lands extended of old along the east
shore of Loch Lomond, from the borders of Drymen parish
northward for some eighteen miles, and included, besides
Ben Lomond itself, as fine a stretch of country — strath and
mountain — as any in the Highlands. Branches of the
Clan also owned lands in the .neighbouring parish of
Drymen, and on both sides of the Water of Endrick, which
here enters the Queen of Scottish Lochs, as well as about
Killearn and Balfron and further east at Arnpryor, near
Kippen ; so that a good deal more than the actual parish
of Buchanan may be considered as the old Buchanan
country. Strange to say, however, this Buchanan
country does not appear to have been the original territory
owned by the Chiefs of the race in Scotland. According
to the family historian, Buchanan of Auchmar, the
founder of the race was a certain Anselan O'Kyan, of
royal race, like that of the O'Neils in Ireland, who came
over to escape troubles in the sister island about the year
1016, and with his followers took service under Malcolm II.,
at that time engaged in his great struggle against the
invading Danes. For his services in this struggle,
Anselan was granted the lands of Buchanan in Stirling-
shire and of Pitquhonidy and Strathyre in Perthshire.
Anselan further secured his footing in the Buchanan
country by marrying an heiress of the Dennistoun family,
the lands he got by her including Drumquhassle on the
Water of Endrick.
MacAuslan remained for two centuries and a half the
name of the Chiefs of the family, and it remains, of course,
an independent surname to the present hour. The first
of the race to be styled " de Buchanan " was Gillebrid,
who was seneschal to the Earl of Lennox, and flourished
in 1240. Meanwhile, in 1225 Macbeth, the father of
Gillebrid de Buchanan, had obtained from Maelduin, Earl
of Lennox, a charter for the island of Clarinch, near
8
BUCHANAN
Facing page 8.
CLAN BUCHANAN 9
Balmaha, and the name of this island afterwards became
the slogan or battle-cry of the Clan. In 1282 Sir Maurice
de Buchanan received from Donald, the sixth Earl of
Lennox, a charter of the lands of Buchanan themselves,
in which the Chief was granted the privilege of holding
courts of life and limb within his territory, on condition
that everyone sentenced to death should be executed on
the Earl's gallows at Catter. The charter is printed in
Irving's History of Dunbartonshire, and the stone in
which the gallows tree was set is still to be seen beside the
old judgment hill of Catter, on Endrickside. At a later
day Catter was itself for many generations in possession of
a family named Buchanan.
During the wars of succession Maurice, the Chief of
Buchanan, had the distinction of being one of the few
notables of Scotland who would not sign the Ragman
Roll, or swear allegiance to Edward I. of England.
Another of the name, Malcolm de Buchanan, signed the
bond, but the Chief stood firmly for the Independence of
Scotland and the cause of Robert the Bruce. Auchmar
records a tradition that, after the defeat at Dalrigh, Bruce
was joyfully received in the Buchanan country by its Chief,
that the King's Cave, near Inversnaid, takes its name from
this episode, and that Buchanan with the Earl of Lennox
afterwards conveyed the King to safety.
From an early date the family of the Chiefs gave off
branches, many of which remain of note to the present
hour. Thus Allan, second son of Maurice, the ninth
laird, married the heiress of Leny. His line ended in an
heiress, Janet, who married John, son of the eleventh Chief
of Buchanan, and became mother of the twelfth Chief.
The eldest grandson of this pair distinguished himself in
the wars abroad. After the battle of Agincourt, when
France, on the strength of the " auld alliance," asked
help from Scotland, and 7,000 men were sent over, Sir
Alexander Buchanan went at the head of a number of
his clan, and at the battle of Beauge" is said to have
encountered the Duke of Clarence, and, escaping his
thrust, to have pierced him through the left eye, and on his
fall to have carried off his cap or coronet on his spear's
point. The usual account is that Clarence was slain by
the Earl of Buchan, Constable of France, but in telling
the story, Buchanan of Auchmar quotes the book of
Pluscardine Abbey, and declares that according to the
family tradition it was for this service that the French
King granted the Buchanan Chief the double tressure
flory counterflory, which forms part of the Buchanan arms
10 CLAN BUCHANAN
to the present day, and also for crest a hand holding
a ducal cap. Sir Alexander Buchanan was himself
afterwards killed at the battle of Verneuil in 1424.
Sir Alexander's next brother, Sir Walter, became
thirteenth Laird of Buchanan, while the third brother,
John, inherited his grandmother's estate of Leny, and
became ancestor of the Buchanans of that branch.
From Thomas, third son of Sir Walter, the thirteenth
Laird, who is stated by Auchmar to have married Isobel,
a daughter of Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, grandson
of King Robert II., came the Buchanans of Carbeth.
And from Thomas, second son of Patrick, the fourteenth
Laird, came the Buchanans of Drumakil, with its branches,
the Buchanans of The Moss, and others.
An interesting story is told of the founding of the
house of Buchanan of Arnpryor by John, second son of
Walter, the fifteenth Chief, and a daughter of Lord
Graham. In the days of James IV., Arnpryor was in
possession of a laird of the Menzies family. This laird
was childless, and as he began to be oppressed with
years, a neighbour, Forrester of Cardin, on pretence of a
false debt, threatened that, if he did not assign the estate
and castle to him, he would attack and capture them by
force of arms. In his distress Menzies appealed to the
Chief of Buchanan, offering, in return for a guarantee of
protection during his life, to leave his lands and estate to
one of the Chief's family. The offer was accepted, the
obligation faithfully carried out, and the estate duly left
to the Chief's second son.
Of the descendant of this individual, the Laird of Arn-
pryor in the days of King James V., an amusing story is
told. As the King's forester was returning to Stirling on
a certain occasion with deer for the royal table, Arnpryor
took the liberty of appropriating the venison for his own
use. He would listen to no remonstrance, declaring with
a laugh that if James was King of Scotland, he, Buchanan,
was King of Kippen. The forester proceeded to Stirling,
and laid his complaint before the King, and forthwith that
monarch, so well known for his exploits in disguise as tRe
Guidman of Ballingeich betook himself in person to the
gates of Arnpryor. There he was roughly refused
admittance by the porter, who informed him that the laird
was at dinner, and could not be disturbed. James there-
upon ordered the man to inform his master that the King
of Scotland had come to dine with the King of Kippen.
On receipt of the message Buchanan flew to the gate, and
proceeded to make the most profuse and eager apologies.
CLAN BUCHANAN 11
At this, it is said, the King only laughed. He forthwith
joined the laird in partaking of his own royal venison, and
for ever after Buchanan of Arnpryor was known as the
King of Kippen. A signet ring, given by James, is still
in possession of the Chief of Buchanan.
Patrick, the sixteenth Chief of Buchanan, married a
daughter of the Earl of Argyll, while John Buchanan of
Leny married a daughter of the Earl of Menteith, and
both fell at the battle of Flodden in 1513. The clan also
fought bravely for Queen Mary at Pinkie in 1547 and at
Langside in 1568.
The latter event brought upon the stage Of Scottish
history a member of the clan who must always remain
famous as one of the greatest of Scottish scholars and men
of letters. George Buchanan was the third son of Thomas
Buchanan of Mid Leowen, now known as The Moss, on
the water of Blane, some two or three miles south of
Killearn. Thomas Buchanan was the second son of
Buchanan of Drumakil, through whom he had the blood
of a daughter of King Robert III. in his veins. His wife
was Agnes Heriot, of the family of Trabroun in Hadding-
tonshire, and his son George first saw the light in
February, 1506. Thomas Buchanan of Mid Leowen died
early, leaving his widow to struggle valiantly for the
upbringing of her eight children by the frugal cultivation
of the little estate. At the age of fourteen the future
historian was sent by James Heriot, his mother's brother,
to pursue his studies at Paris University, but two years
later his uncle died, and he was forced to return home.
He next joined the forces of the Duke of Albany, to try a
soldier's career; but after the hardships of the winter
retreat from Wark Castle suffered a severe illness, and
gave up sword and buckler. He returned to his studies
at St. Andrews and Paris, became preceptor to the young
Earl of Cassillis, and afterwards to a natural son of
James V. Attacking the corruptions of the Greyfriars in
his poem " The Franciscan," he was forced to flee to
France in 1539. There he became famous as the greatest
of the Scottish scholars who occupied chairs in the
continental universities. Among those who boasted of
being his pupils was the celebrated Montaigne, while
among his friends were the Scaligers, father and son.
While imprisoned in Portugal by the Inquisition, he
began his famous Latin paraphrase of the Psalms, and he
afterwards gained the notice of Mary Queen of Scots by a
poem on her marriage to the Dauphin. On her return to
Scotland, the Queen chose Buchanan as her Latin tutor,
12 CLAN BUCHANAN
and conferred upon him the temporalities of Crossraguel
Abbey, worth £500 Scots a year. By Mary's brother, the
Earl of Moray, he was made Principal of St. Leonard's
College at St. Andrews, and from that time onward he
remained a supporter of that personage. Upon the fall
of the Queen he drew up his notorious " Detection " of
her doings. Afterwards, under Moray, he was charged
with the education of James VI., and many amusing stories
are told of his discipline of his royal pupil. For a time
he was Keeper of the Privy Seal, and for long he took a
large part in the public affairs of the kingdom ; but he is
chiefly remembered now by his two great literary works,
the treatise, De Jure Regni apud Scotos and his Latin
History of Scotland. He died on 28th September, 1582,
and is esteemed as the last and greatest of the Latinists,
and one of the first apostles of modern democracy.
The scholarly tradition of the great Latinist and
historian was followed by the twentieth Chief, Sir John
Buchanan, who in 1618 mortified a sum of ^6,000 Soots
for the maintenance of three students of theology in the
University of Edinburgh, and a like sum for the main-
tenance of three students in the University of St. Andrews.
In the records of the Burgh of Dunbarton also, this same
Sir John appears as the donor of various grants for the
erection of a hospital there in 1635 and 1636. His wife
was a daughter of Lord Cambuskenneth, grandson of
the Earl of Mar. Sir George Buchanan, the twenty-first
Chief, commanded the Stirlingshire Regiment in the
Civil Wars of Charles I., fought at the battle of Dunbar,
and was taken prisoner at Inverkeithing.
The reign of John Buchanan, the twenty-second Chief,
proved disastrous to his house. Some of his proceedings,
as narrated by the family historian, possess not a little of
the character of conventional melodrama. On the death
of his first wife, Mary Erskine, daughter of Lord Cardross,
he was left with a daughter, Elizabeth, who appears to
have possessed a will of her own. First he attempted to
make a match for himself with the daughter of Sir John
Colquhoun of Luss, but the young lady jilted him and
married Stirling of Keir, which threw Buchanan into a
palsy that troubled him till his death. He next arranged
a match between his daughter and the son of Buchanan
of Arnpryor, and broke the entail of his estate in order
to leave it to the pair ; but the plan was spoilt by the young
lady refusing her consent. To punish her, he made a
disposition of his estate to Arnpryor, but, going to Bath
just then, fell in love with a Miss Jean Pringle, and
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CLAN BUCHANAN 13
married her. He thereupon cancelled the disposition, and
made an enemy of Arnpryor. He next arranged a
marriage for his daughter with his old friend, Major
Grant, Governor of Dunbarton Castle, to whom he made
a disposition of his estate; but again the girl indignantly
refused. Grant and he thereupon arranged to sell the
Highland part of the estate to clear it of debt. Arnpryor
then, as Buchanan's man of business, so manipulated
matters that at the death of the Chief in 1682, the whole
estate had to be sold. It was acquired by the third
Marquess of Montrose, grandson of the great Scottish
general of Charles the First's time. Buchanan House,
near the mouth of the Endrick, the ancient seat of the
Chiefs, then became the seat of the Montrose family,
and remained so till about 1870, when it was destroyed by
fire, and was replaced by the present Buchanan Castle.
Parts of the old mansion still remain, and possess
considerable interest of their own.
Elizabeth, daughter of the last Laird of Buchanan, it is
interesting to note, married James Stewart of Ardvorlich,
while her half-sister married Henry Buchanan of Leny.
It was probably owing to the break in the direct line of
the chiefship that the clan took no part in the Jacobite
rebellions of 1715 and 1745, which perhaps was not an
unfortunate circumstance for the bearers of the name.
On the failure of the direct line, the representation of
the ancient race fell to the nearest heir-male of the family.
There is reason to believe that Auchmar's account of the
clan, published in 1723, had really for its purpose the
advocacy of its author's own claim to the chiefship as head
of the most recent cadet branch of the family, and there-
fore nearest in blood to the last of the main line.
Nisbet in his Heraldry indicated a different destination.
It was not till a hundred years later, however, that an
authoritative claim was made. In that printed claim it
was declared that the Auchmar branch of the family had
become extinct, and that the chiefship had therefore fallen
to the next nearest cadet branch, that of Buchanan of
Spital or Easter Catter, the old estate of the Knights
Templar in Drymen parish. This family had also come
to possess the lands of an earlier cadet branch, that of
Leny. Thomas Buchanan, tenth laird of Spital, had
married, first, Katherine, ultimate heiress of Henry
Buchanan of Leny, and secondly, Elizabeth, heiress of
John Hamilton of Bardowie. His son, Colonel John
Buchanan of Leny and Spital had, on inheriting the estate
&f Bardowie, assumed the name of Hamilton. In 1818
14 CLAN BUCHANAN
he was succeeded by his brother, Francis Buchanan,
M.D., an author and man of science, who is said to have
known more about India and its civil and natural history
than any European of his time, and who also assumed
the name Hamilton. On gth July, 1828, Dr. Buchanan
was served heir male to his great-gt.-gt.-gt.-gt.-gt.-gt.-
grandfather, Walter Buchanan of Spital, and established
his claim, the Arnpryor branch being extinct, as Chief of
the Clan Buchanan. The individual through whom he
counted descent was Walter, third son of Walter, the
fifteenth Chief of Buchanan, who became laird of the
property of Spital in 1519, as well as from John, third
son of the twelfth Chief, already mentioned. According
to the tradition of the Leny family, it long held possession
of these lands by the preservation of a small sword with
which its ancestor first acquired them. Whoever had the
custody of this weapon and a tooth of St. Fillan was
presumed to have a right to the estate. The sword was
abstracted from Leny in 1745.
The Buchanans of Leny have had an even more
turbulent history than the direct line of their original house
on Loch Lomondside. One incident of that history is
recorded on a tombstone still to be seen in the little
kirkyard of Balquhidder, near Strathyre, in what was at
one time the MacLaurin country. At a certain Fair in the
Leny territory, it is said, a MacLaurin " innocent "
suffered the indignity of being struck across the face with
the tail of a new-caught salmon. The " innocent " could
do little to avenge the insult, but with a loose tongue he
declared that his assailant dared not try the same trick at
the next fair in the MacLaurin country at Balquhidder.
The episode was promptly forgotten by the " innocent,"
but Balquhidder Fair had scarcely begun when a band of
Buchanans was seen coming, fully armed, up the road
from Strathyre. Forthwith the Fiery Cross was sent
round, the MacLaurins mustered, and a battle took place
at Auchinleskine. The MacLaurins were getting the
worst of it when their Chief saw his son cut down. Clay-
more in hand, he shouted his battle-cry, his clan were filled
with the " miri-cath," or madness of battle, and attacked
so furiously that all the invading Buchanans were slain.
The last two, who tried to escape by swimming the
Balvaig, were shot with arrows, and the spot is still
pointed out as the Linn-nan-Seichachan, the " pool of
flight."
The Buchanans of Loch Lomondside were not, how-
ever, without their feuds and tragedies. Walter, the first
CLAN BUCHANAN 15
Laird of Spital, had an illegitimate brother, known as
Mad Robert of Ardwill. This individual got his sobriquet
from a curious incident. He had undertaken, under a
heavy penalty, to secure a certain malefactor for the Laird.
The malefactor died, and Robert's surety was called upon
to pay up. Mad Robert, however, dug up the corpse,
carried it to the Court, and duly claimed to have performed
his undertaking.
Of the various septs of the Clan, MacAuslans, Mac-
Caimans, and others, many interesting stories might be
told. Chief of these septs probably are the MacMillans,
descended, it is believed, from Methlan, a brother of
Gillebrid de Buchanan, the first of the surname, in the
time of King Alexander II. The MacMillans originally
lived around Loch Tay, with Lawers on the north shore
for their chief seat. From that region, however, they were
driven out by the Chalmerses in the reign of David II.
The MacMillan Chief of that time had ten sons, who
settled in various parts of the country. The Chief was
MacMillan of Knapdale in Argyllshire, who, it is said,
had a charter from the Lord of the Isles engraved on the
top of a rock; and at the chapel of Kilmory, which was
built by the family, is still to be seen the finely carved
MacMillan's Cross. For the slaughter of an overbearing
incomer, Marallach Mor, a son of MacMillan of Knapdale,
had to leave the country, and settled beside Loch Arkaig
in Lochaber, where, under the name of MacGille Veol, he
and his descendants performed many doughty deeds as
supporters of Lochiel. They could raise no fewer than a
hundred fighting men to support that Chief's cause, and
proved themselves ever ready to take part in the most
desperate enterprises. The MacMillans are said to have
lost their Knapdale estate by taking part with their
superior, MacDonald of the Isles, in the cause of the rebel
Earl of Douglas against King James II. in 1455.
The MacCalmans derive their descent from a brother
of Gillebrid and Methlan, who settled on Loch Etive side
in the time of Alexander III., and there is evidence that
John Ruskin, the famous writer, was one of the race.
Another interesting branch of the Clan is that of
Buchanan of Drumakil, now represented by Sir Alexander
Leith Buchanan of The Ross on Loch Lomondside. This
latter property was acquired in 1624 by Walter Buchanan
of Drumakil, uncle or cousin of George Buchanan the
historian, and it was within the walls of the mansion that,
after the rebellion of 1745, the Marquis of Tullibardine,
elder brother of the second Duke of Athol, was taken
16 CLAN BUCHANAN
prisoner. On being seized, he is said to have uttered the
prophecy, " There will be Murrays on the Braes of Atholl
when there is never a Buchanan at The Ross ! ' And,
sure enough, the male line of the Buchanans of The Ross
presently came to an end. The heiress, Jean Buchanan of
The Ross, married Hector, son of Colin MacDonald of
Boisdale, who reunited by purchase different properties
which had been alienated from the family estate. At his
seat of Ross Priory, he frequently entertained his brother
Clerk of Session, Sir Walter Scott, and the present laird
is the grandson of his second daughter.
Among more modern members of the Clan who have
attained distinction are Douglas Buchanan, the Gaelic
Cowper, who was a catechist at Kinloch Rannoch in 1755 ;
Dr. Claudius Buchanan, who died in 1815, famous among
the first of those who induced the British nation to
send the blessings of education and religion to our Indian
empire; Sir George Buchanan, the famous physician and
scientist, whose reports are among the classics of sanitary
literature; and Robert Buchanan, the famous poet and
novelist of our own time.
Still another chapter of the Clan's history may be said
to have been begun by a holder of the name who left his
native strath at the end of the seventeenth century.
George Buchanan was the younger son of Andrew
Buchanan, Laird of Gartacharan, near Drymen. Migrat-
ing to Glasgow to push his fortune, he took part with the
Covenanters at the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and had a
reward set upon his head. After the Revolution,
however, he appeared as a prosperous maltster in the
town, and was second Deacon-Convener of the Trades'
House, in the time of William and Mary. The old
maltster had four sons, all of whom played a striking part
in the foundation of Glasgow's prosperity. They were
George Buchanan of Moss and Auchintoshan, Andrew
Buchanan of Drumpellier, Archibald Buchanan of Silver-
banks or Auchintorlie, and Neil Buchanan of Hillington.
All four brothers became great Glasgow merchants, and
built splendid mansions in the city. George was City
Treasurer in 1726, Andrew became Dean of Guild and
Lord Provost, and in 1725 the four brothers founded the
Buchanan Society, now the oldest charitable institution in
Glasgow, with the exception of Hutchesons' Hospital.
The Society has a handsome income from funds of its own.
It has supported many a promising youth of the Buchanan
Clan or its septs through college to a useful career in the
world, and the amount of solid good that it has done in
CLAN BUCHANAN
17
the couple of centuries since it was founded must remain
beyond computation. At the present hour the Society is
a large and thriving brotherhood, and its annals, begun
by the late Mr. Gray Buchanan, and now on the eve of
publication under the editorship of Dr. R. M. Buchanan,
are certain to excite wide interest, as they will form the
latest chapter in the long history of this ancient Clan.
SEPTS OF CLAN BUCHANAN
Colman
Donlevy
Dow
Gibb
Gilbertson
Harperson
Macandeoir
MacCalman
MacCammond
MacColman
Macdonleavy
MacGilbert
Macinally
Macindoe
MacMaurice
MacMurchy
MacWattie
Masterson
Murchison
Ruskin
Spittel
Watt
Dove
Dpwe
Gilson
Harper
Lennie
Macaldonich
MacAuslan
MacCalmont
MacChruiter
MacCormack
MacGibbon
Macgreusich
Macindoer
MacMaster
MacMurchie
Macnuyer
MacWhirter
Murchie
Risk
Spittal
Watson
Yuill
VOL. I.
CLAN CAMERON
BADGB : Dearcag fithich (empitium nigrum) crowberry.
SLOGAN : Chlanna nan con thigibh a so 's gneibh sibh feoil.
PIBROCH : Locheil's March, also Ceann na drochait mohr.
IN all the Highlands there is no clan more famous at once
for valour and chivalry than Clan Cameron. Their deeds
ofbravery in the Great Glen and out of it are not marked
by the bloody ruthlessness which characterises so much
West Highland story, and alike for the chivalry with
which he took up the cause of Prince Charles Edward
when it seemed a forlorn hope, and for the influence which
he exercised on the Highlanders during the entire
rebellion, the Gentle Lochiel, as he was called, of that
time remains on the page of history a type of hig family
and race.
The name Cameron signifies Crooked Nose, and the
story of the founder of the race remains embedded in the
traditions of the West Highlands. In a corrupted form
that story may be found in the opening chapter of James
Ray's Compleat History of the Rebellion of 1745, and the
present writer has heard it direct from the shepherds'
firesides in Lochaber. The tradition runs that the first of
the Camerons was not a Gael, but of British or Cymric
race, and came originally from Dunbartonshire. Being a
" bonnie fechter " he was engaged in many quarrels,
and in one of these suffered the disfigurement which gave
him the name which he handed on to his descendants.
Dunbartonshire having become too hot for him, he made
his way to far Lochaber. There the Chief of the
MacFhearguises was at the time in danger of Seing over-
come by a neighbouring clan with which he was at feud.
He welcomed the stranger, and made him the offer of his
daughter's hand and a fair estate for his assistance. This
offer Cameron accepted, and, having vanquished his
host's enemies, found a settlement in the neighbourhood
which his descendants have retained to the present day.
A quaint part of the tradition as detailed by Ray is that,
at a critical stage of his adventure, Cameron betook
himself to his old nurse at Dunbarton. This dame, who
ll
CAMERON
Facing page 18.
CLAN CAMERON 19
was a noted witch, furnished her fos,ter-son with a parcel
of thongs, which she told him to tie to a fox's tail. This
fox he was to let loose, and all the land it should run over
on its escape should become his. Further, it would be
converted to the same sort of territory as the last which
the thongs touched on his father-in-law's estate. The
sequel may be given in Ray's own words. " That
Cameron might have a good estate as well as a large one
he let the fox loose upon a fine meadow just bordering
upon MacDonald of Glengarry's estate, expecting to have
all the promised land and that it would consist of fine
meadows. The charms were performed with great
ceremony, and the fox turned out as the old woman
directed; and, that he might travel the faster and take
the course they desired, they set dogs after him. The
creature, glad of his liberty, and willing to preserve his
life, endeavoured to elude their chase by running into a
little brook which passed through the meadow where he
was set at liberty. The dogs then entirely lost him, and
he kept along the channel till he came to the estate of
Glengarry. Water being the last thing the enchanted
thongs touched, as fast as the fox ran the land was over-
flowed, so that in the space of a few hours all the country
for several miles together became one continued loch.
The MacDonalds, affrighted at this sudden inundation,
such of them as had time to escape removed their habita-
tions higher up into the mountains, and left the lake and
the adjacent hills to be peaceably enjoyed by Cameron and
his followers. What became of the fox, or where he
stopped, history does not relate, but from this origin it is
called Lochiel, or the Lake of Thongs, from which the
Chief of the Camerons takes his title."
According to Ray, the founder of the name was Sir
Hugh Cameron, and the chronicler is good enough, not-
withstanding his strong prejudice against everything
Jacobite, to say that there had been " a constant succession
of great men down from Sir Hugh, Knight of the Wry
Nose, to the present Lochiel, famous in the late Rebellion."
From a later warrior, Donald Dhu, who flourished in the
end of the fifteenth century, the Clan has also been known
as the Race of Donald the Black, and it is from this
ancestor that the usual Christian name of the chiefs of the
present day is derived. There is also a tradition that
Lochiel is not the eldest branch of the family, this having
been known as the Clan MacGillean Obhi, an heroic tribe
mentioned in some of the early poetic fragments ascribed
to Ossian. According to this tradition, Lochiel acquired
20 CLAN CAMERON
the family property in Lochaber by marriage with the Mac-
Martins of Letterfinlay. The family genealogies assert,
that the actual ancestor of the Cameron chiefs was Angus
who married a sister of Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, slain
by Macbeth in the eleventh century, and present a long
Jine of chiefs descended from this worthy, who dis-
tinguished themselves highly in the wars and other historic
events .of the country.
One of the most famous and desperate of the feuds in
which the Camerons were engaged was that with Clan
Chattan in the end of the fourteenth century, concerning
the lands of Glenluie and Loch Arkaig, to which
Macintosh, the chief of Clan Chattan, laid claim. In the
course of this feud the Camerons penetrated as far as
Invernahaven at the junction of the Truim and the Spey.
There they were met by Macintosh at the head of a force
of Macintoshes, MacPhersons, and Davidsons. Just
before the battle a dispute took place between the
Davidsons and MacPhersons, who each claimed the post
of honour, the right to lead the host. Macintosh decided
the delicate question in favour of the Davidsons, and as a
result Cluny MacPherson in indignation withdrew his
men. Thus weakened, Clan Chattan was defeated by the
Camerons. That night, however, Macintosh sent to the
camp of the MacPhersons one of his bards, who treated
the sullen clansmen to a poem in which their conduct in
retiring from the fight was attributed, not to their sense of
honour, but to their cowardice. This so infuriated the
MacPhersons that they made a surprise attack upon the
Camerons, whom they defeated and pursued with great
slaughter to the confines of Lochaber. One of the results
of this encounter remains among the most famous episodes
in Scottish history. The MacPhersons and the Davidsons
proceeded to fight out their claims to precedence with cold
steel, and presently the uproar among the clans became
so great that the King sent the Earls of Crawford and
Dunbar to quell it. In the end it was agreed that the
matter should be decided by a combat between thirty men
on each side, and the upshot was the famous battle within
barriers on the North Inch of Perth, fought before King
Robert III. in 1396.
Among those who fought on the side of Donald, Lord
of the Isles, at the battle of Harlaw in 1411, was John
Cameron of Lochiel. The Camerons, however, afterwards
found themselves at feud with the Island Lords, and in
this feud suffered most severely, and were brought almost
to extinction. It was in this emergency that the famous
CLAN CAMERON 21
Chief, Donald Dhu, already referred to, achieved fame.
Along with his son, the still more famous Alan Cameron,
he restored the clan to a state of prosperity. Alan obtained
from the Crown feudal charters of the lands of Loch
Arkaig and Lochiel, to which the MacDonalds of Clan
Ranald had laid claim, and by this means dealt a blow at
these Lords of the Isles which materially helped their
downfall. The same Chief engaged in another feud with
the Macintoshes. At a later day he supported Ian
Mudertach when that warrior assumed the chiefship of Clan
Ranald, and he fought alongside the MacDonalds at Glen
Lochy in 1544, when they defeated and killed Lord Lovat
with nearly all his followers. In consequence of this last
achievement the Earl of Huntly was sent into Lochaber
with an overwhelming force, and, seizing Lochiel and
MacDonald of Keppoch, carried them to Elgin, where
they were both beheaded.
Sixty-seven years later, still another disaster befell the
Camerons. In the course of his mission to carry justice
and pacification into the West Highlands, the Earl of
Huntly had obtained certain rights of superiority over
Lochiel's lands, and in 1594, when the Earls of Huntly
and Errol, representing the Roman Catholic faction in the
country, were making a stand against the Government,
Lochiel's forces were ranged upon their side. The
Camerons fought on that side at the battle of Glenlivat,
where the Earl of Argyll, commanding the Protestant
forces, was overthrown. For his distinguished, share in
this battle Lochiel was outlawed, and lost part of his
estate, which was never afterwards recovered. Nine years
later Argyll attempted to wrest the superiority of the
Camerons' lands in Lochaber from Huntly, Lochiel
having agreed to become his vassal. On this occasion
a number of the Camerons threw off their allegiance to
Lochiel and entered into a plot to take his life. The
Chief, however, laid an ambush for the plotters, slew
twenty of them, and captured other eight. Again, for
this, the Cameron Chief was outlawed, and Lord Gordon,
Huntly's son, invading Lochaber, seized him, and
imprisoned him at Inverness.
Perhaps the most famous of all Highland chiefs was
Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel. Born in 1629, and
brought up by the covenanting Marquess of Argyll as a
sort of hostage for his clan, he afterwards took the side of
King Charles I. When Cromwell's forces overran the
country, after the battle of Dunbar, Lochiel held stoutly
out against them. Twice with greatly inferior forces he
22 CLAN CAMERON
defeated the English invaders, and so continually did he
harass the garrison at Inverlochy that he kept it in a state
of siege till the Governor was glad at last to accept peace
on Lochiel's own terms. The Chief accordingly marched
to Inverlochy with pipes playing and banners flying. He
was received with a guard of honour, entertained to a
feast, and, on giving his word of honour to live in peace,
was not only granted an indemnity for the crimes and
depredations committed by his clan, but had all the loss
sustained by his tenants made good, and received payment
for the woods on his property which had been destroyed
by the Inverlochy garrison.
The story is told how in one of these fights Lochiel
found himself in death grips with a gigantic English
officer. They lay on the ground together, neither of them
able to reach his weapon. At last the Englishman saw his
chance, and reached out to recover his sword. As he did
so he exposed his throat, and this the Chief in his
extremity seized with his teeth and held till his opponent's
life was extinct. When upbraided at a later day with the
savage act, he declared it was the sweetest bite he had ever
tasted. It is this Chief who is said to have slain with his
own hand the last wolf ever seen in the Highlands of
Scotland, and his hardihood may be gathered from the
story that on one occasion, when sleeping out in the snow,
having observed that one of his sons had rolled together a
snowball for a pillow, he rose and kicked away the support,
exclaiming, " Are you become so womanlike that you
cannot sleep without this luxury? " It is told of him that
on one occasion at a later day he attended the court of
James VII. to obtain pardon for one of his clan. The
King received him with honour, and granted his request ;
then, purposing to make him a Knight, asked him for his
own sword in order to give special point to the honour.
But the sword was so rusted with the long rainy journey
from Scotland that Lochiel found it impossible to draw it
from its scabbard, whereupon, overwhelmed with shame
before the courtiers, he burst into tears. The King,
however, with ready tact, consoled him. " Do not regard
it, my faithful friend," he said, " had the Royal cause
required it your sword would have left the scabbard
promptly enough." He then gave the Chief the accolade
with his own royal weapon, wnich he forthwith bestowed
upon him as a gift. A day came when Lochiel had an
opportunity of proving the King's saying true. At the
Revolution, when the Royal Standard was raised in the
Highlands by Viscount Dundee, he joined the Jacobite
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CLAN CAMERON 23
army with his clan, and fought at Killiecrankie. After
urging Dundee to give battle, with the words, " Fight,
my lord, fight, if you have only one to three ! " he himself
charged bareheaded and barefooted in front of his men,
and contributed largely to the victory. He lived, how-
ever, to see great changes, and died in 1719, at the age of
ninety, never, after all, having lost a drop of blood in any
of the fights in which he had been engaged.
The son of this Chief joined the Earl of Mar's rising
in 1715, and was forfeited for doing so, and it was his
son again — the grandson of Sir Ewen — who was the Gentle
Lochiel of 1745. But for him it is likely that the clans
would never have risen for Prince Charles Edward.
Courageous and loyal, with the highest sense of honour,
he was held in the greatest esteem in the Highlands.
When he went to meet the Prince at Borrodale he was
determined to have nothing to do with a rising, and it
was upon a generous impulse, touched by the forlornness
of the royal adventurer, that, against his better judgment,
he decided to throw in his lot with Charles. Following
Lochiel's lead the other chiefs came in, and the standard
was raised at Glenfinan. Throughout the rising it was
his influence which restrained the Highlanders from acts
of plunder and violence. On one occasion during the
march to Derby, an Englishwoman who had hidden her
boy in terror of the cannibal habits which were attributed
to the Highland army, exclaimed as Lochiel entered her
house, " Come out, my child, this man is a gentleman;
he will not eat you 1 " Among other things it is said
Lochiel prevented the sack of Glasgow, and for this
reason the magistrates ordered that whenever Lochiel
should visit the city he should be greeted by the ringing
Of the bells. When the Jacobite cause was finally lost at
Culloden he was severely wounded, but he escaped to
France, where his royal master gave him command of a
Scottish regiment. He died abroad in 1748. The events
of that time are commemorated in the well-known piece of
pipe-music, " Lochiel's away to France." It is pathetic
to remember that the last victim of the Jacobite cause was
Lochiel's brother, Dr. Archibald Cameron, who was
arrested on the shore of Loch Katrine during a mission to
this country when the Rebellion was over, and was tried
and executed as a deterrent.
Another member of the clan who figures scarcely less
notably in the literature of that time is Mistress Jean
Cameron. This lady, as tutor for her nephew, Cameron
of Glendessarie, in person brought a large body of the
24
Camerons to join the Prince's Standard at Glenfinan.
The Hanoverian annalists of the time, like Ray, have
taken outrageous liberties with her reputation. Many
writers, like Fielding in his Tom Jones, make suggestive
references to her career. It is certain, however, that at
least one other individual traded upon and besmirched her
name. This person, according to Chambers' Traditions
of Edinburgh, represented herself as a cast-off mistress of
the Prince, and after imposing upon the sympathies
and support of Edinburgh Jacobites, died in a stair foot
of the Canongate. She masqueraded in men's clothes
and had a timber leg. The actual Mistress Jean
Cameron of Glendessarie, however, had a character
above reproach. She was a good deal older than the
Prince. In later life she settled at Mount Cameron
in East Kilbride, and, according to Ure's History of
that parish, she died and was buried there in all the
odour of respectability.
The grandson of the Gentle Lochiel, another Donald
Cameron, was a Captain in the Guards, and married the
Lady Vere. His descendant again, the father of the
present Chief, married a daughter of the fifth Duke of
Buccleuch. And the present Chief himself, who succeeded
in 1905, married Lady Hermione Graham, daughter of
the fifth Duke of Montrose. Lochiel has had a dis-
tinguished career. He served in South Africa during the
war in 1899 and in 1901-2. In 1901 he was aide-de-camp
to the Governor of Madras; and he was a Captain in the
Grenadier Guards till his marriage in 1906. He has also
essayed politics, having contested Sutherlandshire in the
Unionist interest in 1910. In all matters in which the
welfare of the Highlands is concerned he takes an active
part, and in the great emergency of the war of 1914 he
came forward in a fashion worthy of his ancestors and
characteristic of the Cameron clan, and raised four
additional battalions of Cameron Highlanders for active
service. One of these he himself commanded, and the
esteem in which he is held was proved by the fact that the
men required came forward to join the colours within a
few days after the announcement that Lochiel had received
the commission. Among other achievements, he led his
Camerons in the tremendous charge at Loos in which his
two brothers and so many clansmen fell. It is amply
evident that the present Cameron Chief is as loyal and as
active in his country's service as any of his ancestors, and
against his name there falls to be written yet another most
notable chapter in the history of the clan.
hJ
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CLAN CAMERON
SEPTS OF CLAN CAMERON
Chalmers Clarkson
Clarke Kennedy
MacGillonie MacChlery
MacKail Macildowie
MacMartin MacOnie
MacOurljc MacPhail
MacSorley MacUlric
Macvail MacWalrick
Martin Paul
Sorley Taylor
CLAN CAMPBELL
BADGE : Garbhag an t-sleibhe (lycopodium selago) Fir club moss.
SLOGAN : Cruachan.
PIBROCH : Failte '^harcuis, also Baile lonaraora, and Cumha
'Mharcuis.
BEHIND Torrisdale in Kintyre rises a mountain named
Ben an Tuire, the " Hill of the Boar." It takes its name
from a famous incident of Celtic legend. There, accord-
ing to tradition, Diarmid O'Duibhne slew the fierce boar
which had ravaged the district. Diarmid was of the time
of the Ossianic heroes. The boar's bristles were
poisonous, and a rival for his lady's love induced him to
measure the hide with his naked feet. One of the bristles
pricked him, and in consequence he died.
Diarmid is said to have been the ancestor of the race of
O'Duibhne who owned the shores of Loch Awe, which
were the original Oire Gaidheal, or Argyll, the " Land of
the Gael." The race is said to have ended in the reign of
Alexander III. in an heiress, Eva, daughter of Paul
O'Duibhne, otherwise Paul of the Sporran, so named
because, as the king's treasurer, he was supposed to carry
the money-bag. Eva married a certain Archibald or
Gillespie Campbell, to whom she carried the possessions
of her house. This tradition is supported by a charter of
David II. in 1368, which secured to the Archibald
Campbell of that date certain lands on Loch Awe " as
freely as these were enjoyed by his ancestor, Duncan
O'Duibhne."
Who the original Archibald Campbell was remains a
matter of dispute. By some he is said to have been a
Norman knight, by name De Campo Bello. The name
Campo Bello is, however, not Norman but Italian. It is
out of all reason to suppose that an Italian ever made his
way into the Highlands at such a time to secure a footing
as a Highland chief; and the theory is too obviously one
of the common and easy and nearly always wrong deriva-
tions of a name by mere similarity of sound. Much more
probable seems a derivation from a personal characteristic
in the usual Gaelic fashion. In this case the derivation
'26
CAMPBELL OF ARGYLL
Facing page 26.
CLAN CAMPBELL 27
would be from cam beul, " crooked mouth," in the same
way as the name Cameron is derived from cam sron,
" crooked nose."
For a century and a half the MacArthurs of Strachur,
on the opposite shore of Loch Fyne, appear to have been
regarded as the senior branch of the clan. They certainly
were the most powerful, and Skene in his Highlanders of
Scotland says it is beyond question that they held the
chief ship. Their claim may have been derived through
marriage with a co-heiress of the O'Duibhnes. But with
the execution of the MacArthur chief by James I. at
Inverness in 1427 the Campbells were left as the chief
family of the race of Diarmid.
Colin Mor Campbell of Lochow was knighted by
Alexander III. in 1380, and it is from him that the suc-
ceeding chiefs of the race to the present day have been
known as " Mac Cailean Mor." Colin the Great himself
lies buried in the little kirkyard of Kilchrenan above the
western shore of Loch Awe, where his descendant, a recent
Duke of Argyll, placed over his resting-place a stone
bearing the inscription, " To the memory of Cailean Mor,
slain on the Sraing of Lome 13 ." High on the hill
ridge opposite, on the eastern side of the loch, a cairn
marks the spot at which the doughty warrior, in the hour
of victory, pursuing his enemy, MacDougall of Lome, too
far, was overcome and fell.
It was the son of this chief, Nigel or Neil Campbell,
who, espousing the cause of Robert the Bruce, brought
his family on to the platform of the great affairs of
Scottish history. He befriended the king in his early
wanderings, accompanied him in his winter's exile in
Rachryn Island, and fought for him at Bannockburn, and
as a reward he received in marriage Bruce's sister, the
Princess Mary or Marjorie, while the forfeited lands of
David de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, were settled on their
second son. From that hour the fortunes of the
Campbells received hardly a check. Having helped, at
the Bridge of Awe, to overthrow Bruce's enemies, the
powerful Lords of Lome and of Argyll, they proceeded
piecemeal to supplant them and their kinsmen, the
MacDonalds, and secure their lands. In some cases they
compelled or induced the owners of these lands to assume
the Campbell name. Thus the Campbells of Craignish,
though stated to be descended from Dougall, an illegiti-
mate son of a Campbell of the twelfth century, are
universally understood to have borne the name Mac-
Eachern, and to have been a branch of the MacDonalds.
28 CLAN CAMPBELL
In the reign of Bruce's son, David II., the next Chief
of the Campbells, Sir Nigel's son, again played an
important part. It was when the entire country was over-
run by Edward Baliol and his English supporters.
Robert, the young High Stewart, suddenly broke out of
concealment in Bute, and stormed the strong castle of
Dunoon. In this enterprise, which inspired the whole
country to rise and throw off the yoke of the invader, the
Stewart was splendidly helped by Colin Campbell of
Lochow. As a reward the Campbell Chief was made
hereditary governor of the stronghold, with certain lands
to support the dignity. This grant brought the Campbells
into conflict with the Laments, who were owners of the
surrounding Cowal district, and in course of time they
supplanted them in considerable possessions — the kirk of
Kilmun, for instance, where they first begged a burial-
place for a son whose body could not be carried through
the deep snows to Inveraray, and which remains the
Argyll burying-place to the present hour; also Strath
Echaig at hand, which was obtained from Robert III. as
a penalty for the sons of the Lament Chief beating off and
slaying some young gallants from the court at Rothesay,
who were trying to carry away a number of young women
of Cowal.
Colin Campbell's grandson, another Sir Colin, further
advanced his family by marrying a sister of Annabella
Drummond, the queen of Robert III., and his son, Sir
Duncan, married, first a daughter of Robert, Duke of
Albany, son of Robert II. and Regent of Scotland, and
secondly a daughter of Sir Robert Stewart of Blackball, a
natural son of Robert III. He was one of the hostages
for the redemption of James I. from his English captivity
in 1424, and at that time his annual revenue was stated to
be fifteen hundred merks, a greater income than that of
any of the other hostages. A further sign of his
importance, he was made by James I. Privy Councillor,
the King's Justiciary, and Lieutenant of the county of
Argyll, and by James II., in 1445, he was raised to the
dignity of a Lord of Parliament by the title of Lord
Campbell.
It was Lord Campbell's eldest son, Celestine, for whom
a grave was begged for the Lamont Chief at Kilmun.
The second son died before his father, leaving a son,
Colin, who succeeded as second Lord Campbell, and
became first Earl of Argyll, while the third son obtained
the lands of Glenurchy, formerly a possession of the
MacGregors, and founded the great family of the
INISCONNEL, LOCH AWE, THE CRADLE OF THE
CAMPBELL RACE
Facing page 28.
CLAN CAMPBELL 29
Campbells of Glenurchy, Earls and Marquesses of
Breadalbane.
Hitherto the seat of the Campbells of Lochow had been
the stronghold of Inchconnel, which still stands on the
island of that name, amid the waters of the loch; but
Glenurchy built for his nephew the first castle at
Inveraray, which continued to be the headquarters of the
family for four centuries. At the same time, during his
absence abroad, his wife is said to have built for him, on
an islet in the northern part of Loch Awe, the strong castle
of Kilchurn, which remains to the present day one of the
most picturesque features of the Highlands. Thenceforth
the history of the Campbells of Breadalbane forms a
separate and highly interesting chapter by itself.
Meanwhile the younger sons of each generation had
become the founders of other notable families. The
second son of Cailean Mor settling on Loch Tayside had
founded the family of Campbell of Lawers, afterwards
Earls of Loudoun, while the fourth son had been made by
Robert the Bruce, Constable of Dunstaffnage, a post held
by his descendant to the present day, and the fifth son,
Duncan, is believed to have been ancestor of the
Campbells of Inverurie, from whom sprang the families of
Kilmartin, Southall, Lerags, and others. The third son
of Sir Nigel Campbell had founded the house of Menstric,
near Stirling. The second son of Sir Colin, the hero of
Dunoon, had become ancestor of the families of Barbreck
and Succoth. The second son of Sir Colin, the fifth laird,
and Margaret Drummond, was ancestor of the Campbells of
Ardkinglas and their branches, the houses of Ardentinny,
Dunoon, Skipnish, Blythswood, Shawfield, Dergachie,
and others. And younger sons of Sir Duncan, first Lord
Campbell, became ancestors of the Campbells of Auchen-
breck, Glen Saddell, Eileangreig, Ormidale, and others.
Colin, second Lord Campbell, in view of his power and
importance in the west, was made Earl of Argyll by
James II. in 1457. He was appointed Master of the
Household of James III. in 1464. He acted as ambassador
to England and France, and finally was made Lord High
Chancellor of Scotland. By his marriage also he made
conquest of another great lordship. His wife was the
daughter and co-heir of John Stewart, Lord of Lome, and
by a forced settlement with the lady's uncle, Walter
Stewart, he obtained in 1470 a charter of the lands and
title of that lordship. Since that time the Galley of
Lome has by right of descent from the MacDougalls of
Lome, figured in the Campbell coat of arms. The Earl's
30 CLAN CAMPBELL
second son founded the house of Campbell of Lundie,
while his seven daughters made alliances with some of
the most powerful nobles and chiefs in the country.
Archibald, second Earl of Argyll, was the leader of
the vanguard of James IV.'s army at the disastrous battle
of Flodden. At the head of the Highland clans and
Islesmen he made the victorious rush with which the
battle opened, but as the clansmen scattered to seize their
plunder, the English cavalry charged on their flank, the
Earl fell, and they were cut to pieces. Most notable of
the families founded by his sons was that of Cawdor,
who are Earls of Cawdor at the present time. As
Justiciar of Scotland the Earl did a service to Rose
of Kilravock, for which he received the custody of
Kilravock's granddaughter, the infant Muriel, heiress of
the thanedom of Cawdor. The messenger sent to bring
the child south had to fight a battle with her seven Cawdor
uncles. Some suspicion of Campbell methods seems to
have been in the mind of the child's grandmother, old
Lady Kilravock, for before handing her over to Campbell
of Inverliver she thrust the key of her coffer into the fire
and branded her on the thigh. Afterwards, when
Inverliver was asked what he would think if the child that
had cost him so much trouble should die, he is said to
have replied, " Muriel of Cawdor will never die, so long
as there is a red-haired lassie on the shores of Loch Awe."
The Earl married Muriel to his third son, Sir John,
who acquired Islay and played a considerable part in the
affairs of his time. Among other matters he stabbed in
his bed in Edinburgh, Maclean of Duart, who had exposed
his wife, Cawdor's sister, on a rock in Loch Linnhe, to
be drowned by the tide. From the second Earl descended
the families of Ardchattan, Airds, Cluny, and others, and
from his brother Donald, Abbot of Cupar, Keeper of the
Privy Seal, came the Campbells of Keithock in Forfar-
shire.
Colin, third Earl of Argyll, was by James V. appointed
Master of the Household, Lieutenant of the Border,
Warden of the Marches, Sheriff of Argyll, and Justice-
General of Scotland. His second son, John Gorm, who
was killed at the battle of Langside, was ancestor of the
families of Lochnell, Barbreck, Balerno, and Stonefield,
and his daughter Elizabeth was the wife of the notorious
Regent Earl of Moray, half-brother of Mary Queen of
Scots.
Archibald, the fourth Earl, was appointed Justice-
General of Scotland by James V., and was the first person
CLAN CAMPBELL 81
of importance in Scotland to embrace the Protestant faith.
He commanded the Scottish right wing at the battle of
Pinkie in 1547. The fifth Earl, another Archibald,
married a natural daughter of James V. His countess
was the favourite half-sister of Queen Mary, was one of
the Queen's supper-party at Holy rood when Rizzio was
murdered, and acted as proxy for Elizabeth of England at
the baptism of James VI. She and the Earl entertained
the Queen at Dunoon Castle, and the Earl was commander
of Mary's army at the battle of Langside. On that
occasion, whether by sickness or treachery at the critical
moment, he caused the loss of the battle to the Queen. He
was afterwards appointed one of her lieutenants in
Scotland, was a candidate for the regency, and became
Lord High Chancellor.
His half-brother, Sir Colin Campbell of Boquhan,
who succeeded as sixth Earl, was also, in 1579, appointed
Lord High Chancellor. His son, Archibald, the seventh
Earl, had a curious career. In 1594, at the age of eighteen,
he was sent by James VI. to repress the Roman Catholic
Earls of Errol and Huntly, and at the battle of Glenlivat
was completely defeated by them. He afterwards engaged
in suppressing an insurrection of the MacDonalds, with
whom his family had so long been at enmity, and
distinguished himself by repressive acts against those
other neighbours, the MacGregors, whom his family had
for long been ousting, with the result that he nearly
exterminated them. He is suspected of having instigated
them to attack the Colquhouns, and after the battle of
Glenfruin, it was he who secured the MacGregor Chief by
first fulfilling his promise to convey him safely out of
the country, and then, when he had crossed the Border,
arresting and bringing him back to Edinburgh to be tried
and executed. In his later years he went to Spain, became
a Roman Catholic, and took part jn the wars of Philip II.
against the States of Holland.
His son, Archibald, the eighth Earl and first and last
Marquess, for a time held supreme power in Scotland.
Known as Gillespie Grumach, and as the Glied or
squinting Marquess, he was at the head of the Covenanting
Party, and had for his great rival and opponent the
Royalist Marquess of Montrose. In 1633 ne resigned
into the hands of Charles I. the whole Justiciarship of
Scotland except that over his own lands, and in 1641 was
raised to the rank of Marquess of Argyll by that king.
Nevertheless he was the chief opponent of Charles in the
Crvit War in Scotland. In the field he was no match for
82 CLAN CAMPBELL
his brilliant opponent Montrose. At Kilsyth his army
was completely defeated, and at Inverlochy, where he took
to his barge and watched the battle from a safe distance,
he saw the Royalist general cut his army to pieces, and
slay fifteen hundred of his clan. Among his acts in the
war was the burning of the " Bonnie House o' Airlie,*'
the home of Montrose's follower, the chief of the
Ogilvies ; for which act Montrose marched across the hills
and gave Argyll's own stronghold, Castle Campbell in
the Ochils above Dollar, to the flames. When Montrose
was at last defeated at Philiphaugh, the captured Royalists
were slain in cold blood in the courtyard of Newark Castle
and elsewhere, and when Montrose himself was captured
later, Argyll watched from a balcony in the Canongate as
his enemy was led in rags up the street to his trial and
execution. Then Argyll sent the army of the Covenant
to destroy those old enemies of his family, the MacDonalds
of Kintyre, and the MacDougalls of Dunolly, slaughtering
the three hundred men of the garrison of Dunavertie, and
burning the MacDougall strongholds of Dunolly and
Gylen, while in Cowal he plundered the lands of the
Lamonts, and had over two hundred of the clan butchered
at Dunoon. When the young Charles II. came to
Scotland in 1651 Argyll himself placed the crown on his
head, and is said to have planned to get Charles to marry
his own daughter, Anne. But after Cromwell's victory at
Dunbar he assisted in proclaiming him as Protector, and
engaged to support him. It could be no marvel, therefore,
that at the Restoration in 1660 Charles II. resisted his
advances, and that he was presently seized at Carrick
Castle on Loch Goil, carried to Edinburgh, and tried and
beheaded for his acts.
James Campbell, a younger half-brother of the
Marquess, was created Earl of Irvine in 1642, but as he
had no family the peerage expired with him.
The Marquess' son, Archibald, was restored to the
earldom and estates in 1663, but in 1681, having refused
to conform to the Test Act, he was condemned and
imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. He made a romantic
escape disguised as a page holding up the train of his
stepdaughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay. But four years
later, in concert with Monmouth's invasion of England,
he landed in Loch Fyne, raised a force, and was marching
upon Glasgow when, his force having dispersed, he was
seized, disguised, at Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, and
carried to execution at Edinburgh. A famous picture of
the occasion commemorates " the last sleep of Argyll."
CLAN CAMPBELL 83
Of the Earl's four sons the second, John Campbell of
Mamore, was forfeited for taking part in his father's
expedition, but had his forfeiture rescinded at the Revolu-
tion in 1689, and represented Argyll in the Scottish
Parliament in 1700 and Dunbarton in the first Parliament
of the United Kingdom. The third son, Charles, forfeited
and reinstated in the same way, represented Campbel-
town in the Parliament of 1700. He married Lady Sophia
Lindsay, the stepdaughter who had helped his father to
escape from his first imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle.
The fourth son, James, of Burnbank and Boquhan, in
1690 forcibly carried off Mary Wharton, an heiress of
thirteen, and married her. The marriage was annulled by
Act of Parliament, and one of Campbell's accomplices,
Sir John Johnston, Bart., of Caskieben, was executed at
Tyburn ; but the chief perpetrator escaped to Scotland, to
become a colonel of dragoons and represent Campbeltown
in Parliament. He afterwards married the Hon. Margaret
Leslie, daughter of Lord Newark.
Meanwhile the eldest son, Archibald, was one of the
commissioners sent to offer the crown to William of
Orange. The attainder against his father was reversed
at the Revolution, and he was by King William created
Duke of Argyll, with remainder to his heirs male whatso-
ever. He raised a Highland regiment which distinguished
itself in King William's continental wars.
His son, John, the second Duke, was one of the
greatest men of his time. A rival of Marlborough in the
continental wars of Queen Anne, he commanded George
I.'s army at the battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715, and through
lis energy and ability preserved Scotland for that king,
tn 1719 he was made Duke of Greenwich, and in 1735
Field-Marshal commanding all the forces of the kingdom.
A great statesman as well as a soldier, he is referred to
)y Pope :
" Argyll, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field."
And it is he who figures in Sir Walter Scott's Heart of
Midlothian, as the minister to whom Jeanie Deans appeals
o secure the pardon of her erring sister, Effie. Among
lis honours he was a Knight of the Garter and a Knight
Df the Thistle, and his monument remains in Westminster
Abbey.
As the Duke had no son his British titles died with
lim, and he was succeeded in the Scottish honours by his
Brother, Archibald, Earl of Islay. The third Duke had
VOL. i. c
34 CLAN CAMPBELL
served under Marlborough and studied law at Utrecht.
He became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in 1705 and
promoted the Union with England. He was made Lord
Justice General in 1710, and Lord Register in 1714. He
raised Argyllshire for George I. and fought under his
brother at Sheriffmuir. He became Walpole's chief
adviser in Scotland, and keeper successively of the privy
seal and the great seal. For long he was the greatest
man in Scottish affairs, and it was he who rebuilt
Inveraray Castle on its present site. In his time the
strength of the clan was estimated at 5,000 fighting
men, and it sent a contingent to fight against Prince
Charles Edward at Culloden.
After him the dukedom went to his cousin, John
Campbell of Mamore, son of the second son of the ninth
earl. His second son was killed at the battle of Langfeldt
in 1747 and his third son became Lord Clerk Register of
Scotland. His eldest son, John, the fifth Duke, married
Elizabeth Gunning, widow of the sixth Duke of Hamilton,
one of the three sisters who were celebrated beauties at
the court of George III. She was the wife of two dukes,
and the mother of four, and was created Baroness
Hamilton in her own right in 1776. Her second and third
sons by the Duke of Argyll became successively sixth and
seventh Dukes. The latter was a friend of Madame de
Stael, who pictured him as Lord Nevil in her famous
novel, Corinne. His son, George, the eighth Duke, was
the distinguished statesman, orator, scholar, and author
of Queen Victoria's time. Three times married, and three
times Lord Privy Seal, he also filled the offices of
Postmaster-General, Secretary for India, Chancellor of St.
Andrew's University, and Trustee of the British Museum.
Among his honours he was K.G., K.T., P.C., D.C.L.,
L.L.D., and F.R.S., and among his writings were
valuable works on science, religion, and politics. H(
bequeathed lona Cathedral to the Church of Scotland.
He and his eldest son, John, the ninth Duke, inherit*
much of the personal beauty of their ancestor, Elizabeth
Gunning, and when the latter in 1871 married H.R.H. the
Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, the
pair were as distinguished for their fine looks as for their
high rank. For ten years, as Marquess of Lome, he
represented Argyllshire in the House of Commons, and
for a term he was Governor-General of Canada. He held
many honours, and was the author of some interesting
literary works.
The present Duke, Niall Diarmid, is the son of his
CLAN CAMPBELL
35
next brother. His Grace is deeply interested in Highland
affairs, and faithful to all the traditions of a Highland
Chief.
Apart from members of the main Campbell line,
members of the race have been famous in many arenas.
Thomas Campbell, the poet, was of the Kilmartin family,
a Campbell of Stonefield and a Campbell of Succoth have
been Presidents of the Court of Session. The Army, the
Navy, politics, the Church, and probably most other
spheres of national service and distinction, have derived
lustre from members of this great clan, and round the
world there is no name better known than that of the sons
of Diarmid of the Boar.
SEPTS OF CLAN CAMPBELL
Bannatyne
Denoon
Loudon
MacDermid
MacGibbon
Maclsaac
Maclvor
MacKessock
MacNichol
MacOwen
MacTavish
MacUre
Thomas
Thompson
Ure
Burns
Caddell
Calder
Connochie
Denune
MacConochie
MacDiarmid
Macglasrich
MacKellar
MacKissock
MacOran
MacTause
MacThomas
Ta wesson
Thomason
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE
BADGE : Roid (Sweet Gale) or Garbhag an t-sleibh (lycopodium
selago) Fir club moss.
SLOGAN : Siol Diarmid an tuirc, The race of Diarmid of the
Boar!
PIBROCH : Bodach na briogais.
PROBABLY no Highland family has been so prolific in cadet
branches of distinction as the great race of the Campbells.
From the earliest date at which authentic history dawns
upon their race they are found multiplying and establish-
ing new houses throughout the land. At the present hour
scions of the name hold the earldoms of Cawdor and
Loudon as well as the baronies of Blythswood and
Stratheden, and no fewer than seven separate baronetcies.
The steps in the growth of this great house are in every
generation full of interest, and involve in their narration no
small part of the romance of Scottish history.
The rise of the family began with a fortunate marriage
in the twelfth century. With the hand of Eva, daughter
of the O'Duibhne Chief, Gillespie Campbell acquired the
lordship of Lochow, and brought into his family the blood
of the Ossianic hero Diarmid of eight centuries earlier
still. In 1280 Colin Campbell, the chief of the name,
was knighted by Alexander III. He was the " Great "
Colin from whom the chiefs of the family of the later times
have taken the name of " MacCailein Mor." He fell in
conflict with the MacDougals on the Sraing of Lome,
and his body lies in the little kirkyard of Kilchrennan,
above Loch Awe. His eldest son was that Sir Nigel or
Neil Campbell who joined Robert the Bruce at the begin-
ning of his great struggle, and was rewarded with the ham
of the king's sister, and the forfeited lands of the Earl of
Atholl. His eldest son, again, the second Sir Colin Camp-
bell of Lochow, helped the High Steward of Scotland,
afterwards King Robert II., to recover the Castle of
Dunoon from the adherents of Edward Baliol — the first
stroke in the overthrow of that adventurer; and in con-
sequence was made hereditary governor of that royal
stronghold. His grandson, still another Sir Colin, married
Margaret, daughter of Sir John Drummond of Stobhall,
36
CAMPBELL OF BREADALBANE
Facing page 36.
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE 37
and sister of Annabella, Queen of Robert III., and, partly
through this royal connection his eldest son, Duncan, was
made, first, Lord Lieutenant of Argyll by his cousin James
I., and in 1445 was raised to the peerage as Lord Campbell
by James II. He linked his family still more closely to the
royal house by marrying Lady Marjorie Stewart, daughter
of Robert, Duke of Albany, and granddaughter of King
Robert II. On the death of his eldest son, Celestine, at
school, he begged a burying-place at Kilmun from the
Lamont Chief because the snows were too deep for the
body to be carried to Lochow; and from that time to this
Kilmun has been the burying-place of the Campbell chiefs.
While the main stem of the family was carried on by
Lord Campbell's second son's son, Colin, who became
ist Earl of Argyll in 1457, it was his third son, another
Sir Colin, who founded the greatest of all the branches
of the Campbells, that of Glenorchy and Glenfalloch, the
head of which is now Earl of Breadalbane. So well
had the heads of the house improved their fortunes that
Lord Campbell was probably the richest noble in Scotland.
When he became one of the hostages for the redemption
of James I. in 1424, his annual revenue was stated to be
fifteen hundred merks. He was well able, therefore, to
endow his third son with the lands of Glenorchy and Glen-
falloch in 1432.
Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy was one of the ablest
men of his time. As guardian of his nephew, afterwards
Earl of Argyll, he built for him the castle of Inveraray,
and married him to the eldest daughter and co-heir of
John Stewart, Lord of Lome. He himself had married,
first, Mariot, daughter of Sir Walter Stewart, eldest son
of Murdoch, Duke of Albany, grandson of Robert II.;
and on her death he married Margaret, the second daughter
of the Lord of Lome. By these marriages uncle and
nephew not only acquired between them the great estates
of the Stewart Lords of Lome, but also placed upon their
shields the famous lymphad, or galley, which betokened
descent from the famous Somerled, Lord of the Isles.
Sir Colin, who was born about the year 1400, was a
famous warrior, fought in Palestine, and was made a
knight of Rhodes. The tradition runs that while he was
away his wife built for him the castle of Kilchurn on its
peninsula at the end of Loch Awe. He was so long absent
that it was said he was dead, and the lady, like Penelope in
the classic tale, was besieged by suitors. After long delays
a neighbouring baron, MacCorquodale, it is said, forced
her to a marriage. While the marriage feast was going
38 THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE
on, a beggar came to the door. He refused to drink the
health of the bride unless she herself handed him the cup.
This she did, and as the Ueggar drank and returned it
she gave a cry, for in the bottom lay Sir Colin's signet-
ring. The beggar was Sir Colin himself, returned just in
time to rescue his wife.
' After the assassination of James I. at Perth, Glenurchy
captured one of the assassins, Thomas Chalmer of Lawers,
on Loch Tay side, and as a reward he received a grant
of the murderer's forfeited estate. His son and successor,
Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy, further added to the
importance of his family by acquiring the estates of Glen-
lyon, Finlarig, and others on Loch Tay side. When he
married Margaret, daughter of George, fourth earl of
Angus, in 1479, he obtained with her a dowry of six
hundred merks, and he fell with James IV. at Flodden in
His eldest son and successor, again, Sir Colin Campbell
of Glenurchy, married Marjorie Stewart, daughter of John,
Earl of Atholl, half brother of James II., her mother being
Margaret Douglas, that Fair Maid of Galloway, who, as
heiress of her ancient house, played such a strange
romantic part in the story of her time.
Sir Colin, the youngest of the three sons who succeeded
him, sat in the Scottish Parliament of 1560, and played an
active part in furthering the Reformation. Till his time
the lands of Breadalbane had belonged to the Carthusian
Monastery at Perth founded by James I. Sir Colin first
obtained a tack of these lands, and afterwards had them
converted into a feu holding. He was a great builder of
houses, and besides a noble lodging in Perth erected
Edinample on Loch Earn, and in 1580 founded at the
eastern end of Loch Tay the splendid family seat of
Balloch, now known as Taymouth Castle. The site of
this stronghold is said to have been settled in a curious
way, Sir Colin being instructed in a dream to found his
castle on the spot where he should first hear the blackbird
sing on making his way down the strath. According to
the family history written in 1598 he also added the corner
turrets to Kilchurn Castle. Kilchurn and much of the
other Breadalbane territory had once been possessed by
Clan Gregor, but when feudal tenures came in, the chiefs
of that clan had scorned to hold their land by what they
termed " sheep-skin rights," and elected to continue hold-
ing them by the ancient " coir a glaive," or right of the
sword. As a result, when disputes arose they had no
documents to show; the effort to vindicate their claims
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE 39
by the power of the sword got them into trouble; and
the Campbells and other neighbours easily procured
against them powers of reprisal which in the end led to the
conquest and transference of most of the MacGregor
territory. Sir Walter Scott put the plight and feelings of
the clansmen concisely in his famous lament:
Glenorchy's proud mountain, Kilchurn and her towers,
Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours;
We're landless, landless, landless, Gregalach !
Accordingly we find in the Breadalbane family history
that Sir Colin " was ane greate Justiciar all his tyme,
throch the quhilk he sustenit that deidly feid of the Clan
Gregor ane lang space. And besydis that, he causit
execute to the death mony notable lymmars, and beheided
the Laird of Mac Gregor himself at Keanmoir, in presence
of the Erie of Atholl, the Justice Clerk, and sundrie uther
nobillmen."
Sir Duncan Campbell, the eldest son and successor of
this redoubtable chief, is remembered in popular tradition
by the names of " Black Duncan," or " Duncan with the
cowl." Like his father he added greatly to his family
possessions by acquiring feus of the church lands which'
were then extensively in the market as a result of the
Reformation. At the same time he was perhaps the most
enlightened landowner of his age. At any rate he was
the first of Highland lairds to turn attention to rural
improvement. Among other matters he was a great
planter of trees, and also compelled his tenants to plant
them. Many of 'the noble trees which still surround his
stronghold of Finlarig, at the eastern end of Loch Tay,
were no doubt of his planting. Like his father also he
was a notable builder of strongholds, and besides Tay-
mouth, Edinample, and Strathfillan, he possessed Finlarig,
Loch Dochart, Achalader, and Barcaldine. From this
partiality he obtained the further sobriquet of " Duncan
of the Castles." When he began to build Finlarig some-
one is said to have asked why he was placing it at the
edge of his property, and he is said to have replied, in
characteristic Campbell fashion, that he meant to " birse
yont." He was knighted by James I. in 1590; was made
heritable keeper of the forest of Mamlorn in 1617, and
afterwards Sheriff of Perth for life. Finally, when the
order of Baronets of Nova Scotia began to be created in
1625, he was one of the first to have the dignity conferred
upon him. His first wife was Jean, daughter of John
Stewart, Earl of Atholl, Chancellor of Scotland, and a few
40 THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE
years ago the effigies of the pair were discovered on the
under side of two stones which for centuries had been
used as a footbridge across a ditch at Finlarig. At Fin-
larig are also still to be seen the gallows tree and the fatal
pit in the courtyard, to which prisoners came from the
Castle dungeon by an underground passage, to be gazed
at by the laird's retainers before placing their head in the
hollow at the side still to be seen, to be lopped off by the
executioner. The heading axe of these terrible occasions
was till 1922 preserved among other interesting relics at
Taymouth Castle. Since 1508 the chapel at Finlarig has
been the burying-place of the chiefs of the house.
Black Duncan's eldest son and successor, Sir Colin,
was a patron of the fine arts, and encouraged the painter
Jameson, the " Scottish Vandyck." His brother Robert,
who succeeded him as third Baronet, and was previously
known as "of Glenfalloch," represented Argyllshire in
the Scottish parliaments of 1643, 1646, and 1647, the
period of the civil wars of Charles I. and the exploits of
the Marquess of Montrose.
This chief, the third baronet of Glenurchy, had by his
two wives a family of no fewer than fifteen, of whom
more anon. Meanwhile his eldest son's son, Sir John
Campbell, fifth baronet of Glenorchy, was to make history
in more ways than one, both for his family and for the
country. From his swarthy complexion he was known
as Ian Glas. He was a clever and unscrupulous politician,
and it was said of him that he was " cunning as a fox,
wise as a serpent, and slippery as an eel." By his first
wife, the Lady Mary Rich, daughter of the first Earl of
Holland, beheaded in 1649, he received a dowry of
;£io,ooo, and it is said that after the marriage in 1657 he
conveyed her from London to the Highlands in simple
fashion, the lady riding on a pillion behind her lord, while
her marriage portion, which he made sure was paid in
coin, was carried on the back of a strong gelding, guarded
on each side by a sturdy, well-armed Highlander. It was
probably this money which helped him to one of the most
notable actions of his career. At any rate it appears that
among other investments he lent large sums of money to
George, sixth Earl of Caithness. The Sinclairs have
stories to tell, which may or may not be true, as to
questionable methods by which these burdens of the Earl
of Caithness were increased. One is that Charles II.
obtained the earl's security for large sums, and then
pledged it with Glenurchy. In any case in 1572 the Earl
of Caithness found his debts overwhelming, and, being
SIR DUNCAN CAMPBELL OF GLENURCHY (BLACK DUNCAN
OF THE COWL), AND HIS FIRST WIFE, ELIZABETH
STEWART, ON STONES AT FINLARIG CASTLE
Facing page 40.
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE 41
pressed by Glenurchy as his chief creditor, conveyed to
him in wadset the whole property and titles of the
Earldom, the possession of which was to become absolute
if not redeemed within six years. The redemption did not
take place, and on the death of the Earl, Glenurchy pro-
cured from the king in 1677, in right of his wadset, a new
charter to the lands and title of Earl of Caithness. The
heir to the Earldom also claimed the title and estates, and
Glenurchy proceeded under legal sanction to enforce his
rights by strength of arms. For this purpose he sent his
kinsman, Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, with a
strong body of men, into the north. The Sinclairs also
gathered in armed force, and the two parties came face to
face, with a stream between them. Glenlyon is said by
the Sinclairs to have used the strategy of sending a convoy
of strong waters where he knew it would be captured by
the Sinclairs, and at night, when the latter had enjoyed
themselves not wisely but too well, the Campbells marched
across the stream and utterly routed them. It was on this
occasion that the Campbell piper composed the famous
pibroch of the clan " Bodach na Briogais," the Lad of
the Breeches, in ridicule of the Sinclairs, who wore that
garment ; and it is the event which is commemorated in the
famous song " The Campbells are Coming." In the end,
however, by the legitimate heir, George Sinclair of
Keiss, the Campbells were driven out of the country, and
Charles II., being at length persuaded of the injustice of
his action, induced Glenurchy to drop the Caithness title,
and compensated him in 1681 by creating him Earl of
Breadalbane and Holland, with a number of minor
dignities. Cunning as ever, Glenurchy procured the right
to leave his titles to whichever of his sons by his first wife
he should think proper to designate, and in the end, as
a matter of fact, he passed over the elder of the two,
Duncan, Lord Ormelie, who eventually died unmarried
ten years after his father.
Glenurchy's first wife died in 1666, and twelve years
later Glenurchy, probably by way of strengthening his
claim to the Caithness title, married Mary, Countess
Dowager of Caithness. This lady was the third daughter
of the notorious Archibald, Marquess of Argyll, who,
strangely enough, like the father of Glenurchy's first wife,
had been beheaded after the Restoration.
Possibly Breadalbane was inspired by his father-in-
law's example to adopt sinister methods. At any rate we
know that he was the chief mover in the transaction known
in history as the Massacre of Glencoe. In this transaction
42 THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE
he showed his usual cunning. Glencoe appeared a
desirable addition to the estate. So also did Glenlyon.
He had left Campbell of Glenlyon to bear the expense
of the great Caithness expedition, and he now took
advantage of Glenlyon 's impecuniosity to induce him
to act as his catspaw in the affair of Glencoe. In that affair
Glenlyon had also a personal revenge to satisfy, for the
MacDonalds of Glencoe, on their way home after the
battle of Killiecrankie, had raided and thoroughly
destroyed his lands. At any rate it was Captain Robert
Campbell of Glenlyon, with a company of Campbells, who
carried out the notorious massacre. What his feelings
towards his chief may have been at a later day we do not
know, when, upon riding into Edinburgh to redeem a
wadset on his lands of Glenlyon cnly in the nick of time,
he encountered his kinsman and chief in the act of closing
the wadset and ousting him from his heritage. Such a
personage was Ian Glas, first Earl of Breadalbane and
Holland. The wily old chief lived till 1717. Two years
before his death he sent 500 of his followers to join the
Jacobite rising of the Earl of Mar, but escaped without
serious consequences of the act.
Curiously enough as a result of the massacre Highland
superstition has associated a curse with the house both of
the prime mover Breadalbane and with that of his agent,
Glenlyon. Sir Walter Scott tells the story of how at a
later day a Campbell of Glenlyon was the officer in com-
mand of a firing party entrusted with the carrying out
of the death sentence of a court martial. The intention
was to reprieve the culprit, but the reprieve was not to be
made known to the latter till the very moment of execution.
Glenlyon had arranged that the signal to fire should be
his drawing his white handkerchief from his pocket.
When all was ready, and the firing party was in position,
he put his hand into his pocket to produce the reprieve.
Unfortunately his handkerchief came with it. This was
taken by the soldiers as the appointed signal, the muskets
rang out, and the prisoner fell. At that Glenlyon is said
to have struck his forehead with his hand, exclaiming,
" I am an unfortunate ruined man; the curse of God and
Glenlyon is here! " and forthwith to have retired from
the service.
The second Earl of Breadalbane was Lord Lieutenant
of Perthshire and a representative peer. In his time
occurred the Jacobite rising of 1745, when it was reckoned
that the Earl could put a thousand men into the field.
The third Earl was a Lord of the Admiralty and an
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THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE 48
ambassador to the Danish and Russian courts. By his
third wife the Earl had a son John, Lord Glenorchy, who
died before him childless in 1771. His widow Willielma,
daughter and co-heir of William Maxwell of Preston, was
the famous Lady Glenorchy whose peculiar religious views
induced her to found chapels for her followers in Edin-
burgh, Carlisle, Matlockx and Strathfillan.
On the death of the third Earl himself in 1782, the
male line of the notorious Ian Glas became extinct. The
patent, however, included heirs male general, and the
peerage accordingly went to a grandson of Colin of
Mochaster, third son of Sir Robert Campbell, third
baronet of Glenorchy. This grandson, John Campbell,
succeeded as fourth Earl of Breadalbane. He was Major-
General and a representative peer, and was made Marquess
of Breadalbane and Earl of Ormelie in 1806. His only
son, John, was, according to Peter Drummond of Perth
(Perthshire in Bygone Days), the hero of a curious
romance. While a student at Glasgow University he fell
in love with Miss Logan, daughter of Walter Logan of
Fingalton, near Airdrie, and partner in the firm of Logan
and Adamson, who lived in West George Street, the
ground floor of the house now occupied by Messrs.
Paterson's music warehouse. The young lady was a great
toast and strikingly handsome. Every time she entered
the Theatre Royal in Queen Street it is said the audience
rose to a man and cheered wildly. Alas, however, the
match was considered unsuitable and was broken off, and
the lady died unmarried in 1856.
Lord John meanwhile had succeeded as second
Marquess and fifth Earl on the death of his father in 1834,
and became a Knight of the Thistle, a Knight of the
Black Eagle of Prussia, Lord Lieutenant of Argyllshire,
and president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland. In his time Queen Victoria paid her famous
first visit to Scotland, and on that occasion was entertained
at Taymouth with the most splendid hospitality. With
huntings and Highland games by day and feastings and
balls at night, the royal entertainment was " more like
the dreams of romance than reality."
The Marquess died without issue at Lausanne in 1862,
when there ensued one of the most famous peerage cases
on record. The Earldom was claimed by John Alexander
Gavin Campbell of Glenfalloch, as great-great-grandson of
William, fifth son of Sir Robert Campbell, third baronet
of Glenorchy. There was, however, a question as to his
legitimacy. His grandfather, it appeared, a younger son
44 THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE
of the Glenfalloch of his time, had, while an officer in the
army, run away with the wife of an apothecary at Bath,
and though the apothecary presently died, it was
questioned whether a union so begun could afterwards be
accepted as legitimated by a Scottish marriage and so
legitimize the offspring of the union. Glenfalloch's claim
to the Earldom was accordingly disputed by the repre-
sentative of his grandfather's younger brother, Campbell
of Borland. In the end, however, it was shown that the
gay young officer and the lady of Bath had been received
at Glenfalloch by the young officer's father and mother,
who were strict in their religious views, and unlikely to
have countenanced the lady unless they regarded her as
really their son's wife. The House of Lords accordingly
decided in favour of Glenfalloch's claim, and he became
sixth Earl of Breadalbane. His eldest son, the late head
of the house, who succeeded in 1871, held several high
positions in the royal household. He was a Lord-in-
Waiting from 1873 to 1874, Treasurer of the household
1880-5, Lord Steward of the household 1892-5, also A.D.C.
to the King and Lord High Commissioner to the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1893-4-5. He was
created Baron Breadalbane in the peerage of the United
Kingdom in 1873, and advanced to the Earldom of Ormelie
and Marquessate of Breadalbane in 1885. He was also
a Knight of the Garter and a Privy Councillor, and was
Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland from 1907. He
married in 1872 Lady Alma Graham, youngest daughter
of the fourth Duke of Montrose. In 1921, when, in the
stringency after the great war, many of the great land-
owners of Scotland parted with their estates, he disposed
of Taymouth Castle, the town of Aberfeldy, and the
lands at the lower end of Loch Tay. On the Marquess's
death in 1922 he was succeeded in the Earldom and older
titles by his nephew, Iain E. H. Campbell, but that
nephew himself died in May, 1923. At his death it was
discovered that he had been married for seven years.
Should he have no son the titles and estates will devolve
upon the former competitor's son, Captain Charles W.
Campbell of Borland.
IdL
•j/1
CHISHOLM
Facmgpage 44
CLAN CHISHOLM
BADGE : Raineach (filix) Fern.
PIBROCH : Failte Siosalaich vStrathglas.
ONE of the most remarkable episodes among the adventures
of Prince Charles Edward in the West Highlands,
between the time of his escape from Benbecula by the aid
of Flora MacDonald and his final setting sail for France
on board the Doutelle, was that of his shelter and
protection by the Seven Men of Glen Morriston. The
names of these seven men, as given in the Lyon in
Mourning, were Patrick Grant, commonly called Black
Peter of Craskie, John MacDonnell alias Campbell,
Alexander MacDonnell, Grigor MacGregor, and three
brothers Alexander, Donald, and Hugh Chisholm. These
seven were afterwards joined by an eighth, Hugh
Macmillan. These men had been engaged in the Jacobite
rising, and, as a result, their small possessions had been
burned and destroyed. Seventy others of tjaeir neighbours
who had surrendered they had seen sent as slaves to the
colonies, and in desperation they had bound themselves
by a solemn oath never to yield and never to give up their
arms, but to fight to the last drop of their blood. Several
of their deeds are recounted in the work already referred
to. About three weeks before the Prince joined them,
four of them, the two Macdonnells and Alexander and
Donald Chisholm, attacked a convoy of seven soldiers
carrying provisions from Fort Augustus to Glenelg, shot
two of the soldiers dead, turned loose the horses, and
carried the provisions to their cave. A few days
later, meeting Robert Grant, a notorious informer from
Strathspey, they shot him dead, cut off his head, and set
it up in a tree near the high road, where it remained for
many a day, a terror to traitors. Three days later, word
reached them that an uncle of Patrick Grant had had his
cattle driven off by a large party of soldiers. Near the
Hill of Lundy, between Fort Augustus and Glenelg, they
came up with the raiders and demanded the return of the
cattle. The three king's officers formed up their party for
defence and continued to drive away the cattle; but the
45
46 CLAN CHISHOLM
seven men, moving parallel with the party, kept up a
running fire two by two, and finally, in a narrow and
dangerous pass, so beset the soldiers that they fell into
confusion and fled, leaving the cattle, as well as a horse
laden with provisions, to the assailants.
To these men the Prince was introduced as young
Clanranald, but they instantly recognised him, and
welcomed him with the utmost enthusiasm and devotion.
They took a dreadful oath to be faithful to him, and kept
it so well, that not one of them spoke of the Prince having
been in their company till a twelvemonth after he had
sailed to France. Charles told them they were the first
privy council who had sworn faith to him since the battle
of Culloden, and he lived with them first for three days in
the cave of Coiraghoth, and afterwards for four days in
another of their fastnesses two miles away, the cave of
Coirskreaoch.
John Home, in his history of the Rebellion, quoting
the narrative of Hugh Chisholm, says that " when Charles
came near they knew him and fell upon their knees.
Charles was then in great distress. He had a bonnet on
his head, a wretched yellow wig, and a clouted hand-
kerchief about his neck. He had a coat of coarse
dark-coloured cloth, a Stirling tartan waistcoat much
worn, a pretty good belted plaid, tartan hose, and Highland
brogues tied with thongs, so much worn that they would
scarcely stick upon his feet. His shirt (and he had not
another) was of the colour of saffron." The outlaws
undertook to procure him a change of dress. This they
did by waylaying and killing the servant of an officer,
conveying his master's baggage to Fort Augustus.
On 6th August, learning that a certain captain of
militia, named Campbell, factor to the Earl of Seaforth,
was encamped within four miles of his hiding-place,
Charles determined to remove, and, during the night,
attended by his rude but faithful bodyguard, . he passed
over into Strathglass, the country of The Chisholm. The
Prince stayed in Strathglass for four days, then passed
over into Glen Cannich, hoping to hear of a French vessel
that had put into Poolewe. Disappointed in this, how-
ever, he returned across the Water of Cannich, and,
passing near young Chisholm's house, arrived about two
in the morning of I4th August at a place called Fassana-
coill in Strathglass, where the party was supplied with
provisions by one, John Chisholm, a farmer. Chisholm
was even able to furnish a bottle of wine, which had been
left with him by a priest. It was not till the igth of
CLAN CHISHOLM 47
August that the Prince passed from Glen Morriston to
Glengarry. On finally parting from his faithful protectors
at a wood at the foot of Loch Arkaig, the Prince gave their
leader, Patrick Grant, twenty-four guineas, being nearly
all the money he possessed. This made an allowance of
three guineas for each man, which cannot be considered a
preposterous acknowledgment, seeing that any one of them
could, at any moment during the Prince's stay among
them, have earned for himself the reward of .£30,000
offered by Government for his capture.
Of one of these seven men, Hugh Chisholm, in later
days, an interesting account is given by Sir Walter Scott.
Towards the close of the century he lived in Edinburgh
and became known to Scott, then a young man at college,
who subscribed to a trifling annuity for him. Scott says
" he was a noble commanding figure of six feet and
upwards, had a very stately demeanour, and always wore
the Highland garb. . . . He kept his right hand usually
in his bosom, as if worthy of more care than the rest of
his person, because Charles Edward had shaken hands
with him when they separated." In the end he returned
to his native district, and died in Strathglass some time
after 1812.
The humble clansmen who appear thus heroically in
Scottish history in the eighteenth century, were members
of a race whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity.
By some the family is believed to have taken its name
originally from a property on the Scottish Border, and to
have been transplanted thence at an early date to the
district of Strathglass in Inverness-shire. Another theory
is that the Chisholms, whose Gaelic name is Siosal, are
derived from the English Cecils. If either of these
theories be correct, the case is little different from that of
many others of the most notable Scottish clans, whose
progenitors appear to have settled in the north in the time
of Malcolm Canmore and his sons, much in the same way
as Norman and Saxon knights were settled in the
Lowlands by these monarchs, and probably for the same
reason, to develop the military resources and ensure the
loyaltv of their respective districts.
Whatever its origin, the race of the Chisholms appears
early enough among the makers of history in the north.
Guthred or Harald, Thane of Caithness in the latter part
of the twelfth century, is stated by Sir Robert Gordon to
have borne the surname of Chisholm. His wife was the
daughter of Madach, Earl of Atholl, and he was one of
the most powerful and turbulent of the northern chiefs,
48 CLAN CHISHOLM
till William the Lion at last defeated and put him to death
and divided his lands between Freskin, ancestor of the
Earls of Sutherland, and Magnus, son of Gillibreid, Ear
of Angus. Upon that event the chiefs of the Chisholms
it is conjectured, sought a new district, and about the
year 1220 settled in Strathglass. From that time to this
they have been located in the region, and to an early
chief the saying is attributed that there were but three
persons in the world entitled to be called " The " — th
King, the Pope, and The Chisholm.
In the Ragman Roll of 1296 appear the names o
Richard de Chesehelm, in Roxburghshire, and John d
Cheshome, in Berwickshire, but it cannot be suppose
that these individuals had any but the most remot
relationship with the Clan Chisholm of the north. I
1334 the chief of the Chisholms married the daughter an
heiress of Sir Robert Lauder of Quarrelwood, presumabl
the estate of that name in the parish of Kirkmahoe in
Dumfries-shire, who was at that time Constable of the
royal castle of Urquhart at the foot of Glen Morriston on
Loch Ness. Robert, the son of this marriage, succeeded
through his mother to the estate of Quarrelwood, and
became keeper of Urquhart Castle. He was one of the
knights who was taken prisoner along with the young
King David II. at Neville's Cross in 1346, but procured
his freedom, and left a record of his piety at a later day by
bestowing six acres of arable land within the territory of
the old Castle of Inverness upon the kirk there. The
deed, dated in 1362, is still preserved, and the ground,
still the property of the Kirk Session, has its revenue
devoted to the relief of the poor, and is known on that
account as the Diribught, " Tir na bochd," or poor's land.
By way of contrast to this piety, Sir Robert Chisholm,
Lord of Quarrelwood, was accused in 1369 of having
wrongously intromitted with some of the property belong-
ing to the bishopric of Moray, and twenty-nine years later
John de Chesehelm was ordered to restore the lands of
Kinmylies, which belonged to the church. In the Register
of Moray, under the date of 1368, is preserved the record
of an act of homage performed to the Bishop for certain
lands by Alexander de Chisholme, presumably a son of
Sir Robert. " In camera domini Alexandri, Dei gratia
Episcopi Moraviensis apud Struy, presente tota multitudine
Canonicorum et Capellanorum et aliorum, ad prandium
ibi invitatorum, Alexander de Chisholme fecit homagium,
junctis manibus et discooperta capite, pro eisdem terris, "
etc.
CLAN CHISHOLM 49
The main residence of the chiefs of that time appears
to have been Comar, and in an indenture dated 1403
Margaret de la Aird is stated to be the widow of the late
chief, Alexander Chisholm of Comar. This indenture was
for the settlement of the estates between the widow,
Alexander's successor Thomas, and William, Lord Fenton,
as heirs portioners, and it detailed the family property as
lying not only in the shires of Inverness and Moray, but
also in the counties of Aberdeen, Forfar, and Perth.
At the end of the fourteenth century the chief of the
time, John Chisholm, had an only child, Morella, or
Muriel. By her marriage to Alexander Sutherland, baron
of Duffus, a large part of the property of the chiefs was
carried out of the family, and John's successor was left
with little more than the original patrimony of his
ancestors in Strathglass. Muriel also carried into her
husband's family the Chisholm insignia of the Boar's
head as an addition to its coat of arms.
Somewhere during those centuries occurred a tragic
incident which has retained a place among the traditions of
the clan. One of the Chisholm chiefs, it appears, carried
off a daughter of the chief of the Frasers. To ensure her
safety he placed her on an island on Loch Bruaich. But
her father's clan having mustered in force, traced her to
this retreat. A fierce struggle followed, and in the course
of it the young lady was accidentally slain by her own
brother's hand. The incident is the subject of a well-
known Gaelic song, and around the spot are still to be seen
the burial mounds of those who fell in the battle.
For some two centuries Comar appears to have
remained the residence of the chiefs. In 1513 amid the
troubles which followed the defeat and death of James IV,
at Flodden it is recorded that Uilan of Comar, along with
Alastair MacRanald of Glengarry, stormed the royal
castle of Urquhart. And again in 1587, when the chiefs
3f the Highland clans were called upon to give security
For the peaceful behaviour of those upon their lands, the
lame of " Cheisholme of Cummer " appears on the roll.
Within the next century, however, Erchless Castle had
oecome their main stronghold, and at the Revolution it
vas garrisoned for King James. After the battle of
villiecrankie it was deemed important enough to call for
special effort at reduction, and General Livingstone found
10 little difficulty, though he besieged it with a large
orce, in capturing the place and preventing the clansmen
rom regaining possession.
Among the Highland chiefs who signed the loyal
VOL. I.
50 CLAN CHISHOLM
address to King George I., which was presented to that
monarch by the Earl of Mar on his landing at Greenwich
in 1714, appears Ruari or Roderick Maclan, the Chisholm
chief of the time. George I., as all the world knows,
treated the address and its bearer with scant courtesy, and
by that proceeding directly brought about the rising of the
Jacobite clans under the Earl of Mar in 1715. In that
rebellion the clan was led by Chisholm of Cnocfin, and in
consequence, after the defeat at Sheriffmuir, his estates
were forfeited and sold. In 1727, however, the veteran
procured a pardon under the Privy Seal. The lands had
meanwhile been acquired by MacKenzie of Allangrange.
On the pardon being granted he conveyed them to
Chisholm of Mucherach, who, in turn, conveyed them to
Roderick's eldest son, with an entail on his heirs male.
In 1745 the clan again turned out in support of the
Jacobite cause, and was led on the occasion by Colin, the
youngest son of the chief. The protection afforded Prince
Charles Edward by the seven men of Glen Morriston
during the critical days of his wandering in the Chisholm
country and its neighbourhood, was only part of the
devoted effort put forth by the clan on that memorable
occasion.
Alexander Chisholm, who succeeded to the chief ship in
1785, and died in 1793, left an only child, Mary, who
married an Englishman, James Gooden, and settled in
London. The chief ship and estates then passed to his
youngest brother, William. This chief married the eldest
daughter of MacDonnell of Glengarry, and his elder son
and successor, Alexander, sat as M.P. for Inverness-shire.
On the death of the latter in 1838 the estates and chief ship
passed to his brother Duncan. The clan is fortunate in
still possessing a chief of its name well known for his
public spirit in Highland affairs, while Erchless Castle, the
ancient family seat, remains one of the most beautiful and
picturesque of Highland residences. Near the Castle, on
a green mound surrounded by ancient trees, a number of
the early chiefs were buried, and here also, by his own
desire, lies Alexander William, the chief who died in 1838;
but the burying-place of most of the family was at Beauly
Priory, where a tablet set up by his only daughter, Mrs.
Gooden, commemorates Alexander, the chief who died
in 1793.
From an early date a branch of the clan was settled at
Cromlix, or Cromlics, in Perthshire, which includes the
episcopal city of Dunblane. At the Reformation, this
branch produced in succession three bishops, all of the
CLAN CHISHOLM 51
name of William, each of whom strenuously opposed the
tenets of the Reformation. The first of these, who died
in 1564, was notorious for his moral shortcomings, and
seized the pretext of the Reformation, when church lands
were being cast into the melting got, to alienate the
episcopal estates of Dunblane to his illegitimate children.
The second of these bishops, who was appointed co-adjutor
to his uncle in 1561, and succeeded him as Bishop in 1564,
acted as envoy for Mary Queen of Scots from 1565 to
1567. Before 1570, like several other Catholic Scottish
bishops, he withdrew to France, where he was appointed
Bishop of Vaison. In 1584 he became a monk of the
Chartreuse, and latterly was prior of the Chartreuse at
Lyons and Rome. This bishop also was succeeded by a
nephew, who became bishop of Vaison in 1584. He was
notorious for his intrigues in Scottish affairs in 1602,
when, in the interest of the Scottish Catholics, he
endeavoured to obtain the cardinalate. He was rector of
Venaissin from 1603 till his death in 1629. Finally, by
the marriage of Jane, only daughter of Sir James Chisholm
of Cromlix, to James, second son of David, second Lord
Drummond, who afterwards became Lord Maderty, the
lands were carried into the family of that nobleman, and
gave his descendant, Viscount Strathallan, his second title,
which is still carried by his descendant, the Earl of Perth,
though the superiority of the lands afterwards passed to
the Earl of Kinnoul.
Two other Catholic prelates of the name were person-
ages of importance in the Highlands. The elder of these,
[ohn Chisholm, was educated at Douai, was made a
orelate as titular Bishop of Oria in 1792, and became
Vicar Apostolic of the Highland district in the same year.
j-Ie was succeeded by his clansman, Aeneas Chisholm, who,
|ifter an education at Valladolid, became tutor at Douai in
1:786, and priest in Strathglass three years later. After
peing raised to the prelacy as titular bishop of Diocaesarea
n 1805, he became Vicar Apostolic of the Highland
ilistrict in 1814.
CLAN COLQUHOUN
BADGE : Braoileag nan con (arbutus uva ursi) Bear berry.
SLOGAN : Cnoc Ealachain (or Cnoc an t-seilich) .
PIBROCH : Caismeacha Chloinn a' Chompaich.
IF the battle of Glenfruin remains the most outstanding,
triumphant, and disastrous landmark in the history of
Clan Gregor, it remains also the most notable in that of
their old enemies, the Colquhouns. Every day, all
summer through, a great stream of tourists makes its way
up the silver reaches of Loch Lomond, and strangely
enough the two interests which most engross the attention
of the pilgrims are the associations with Rob Roy on the
eastern shore of the loch and the memories of the great:
battle which the Colquhouns fought with the MacGregors
in Glenfruin on the western side. This wide " Glen of
Sorrow," as its name means, opens away among the hills
some three miles above Balloch, at the southern end of the
loch, and, while its " water " has become famous among
anglers within recent years, the interest of the glen to
most passers-by must remain for all time that of the great
clan conflict in which the Colquhouns suffered so severely
at the hands of their invading enemies.
Sir Walter Scott, who, it is said, had been treated with
somewhat scant courtesy on the occasion of a visit which
he paid to the residence of the Colquhoun chief, has put
the triumph of the clan's old enemies into a nutshell in
his famous MacGregor boat-song in Rob Roy:
Proudly our pibrochs have thrilled in Glenfruin,
And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied;
Glen Luss and Rossdhu they are smoking in ruin,
And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side.
Widow and Saxon maid
Long shall lament our raid,
Think of Clan Alpin with fear and with woe;
Lennox and Leven glen
Shake when they hear again
Roderich vich Alpin dhu, Ho ieroe !
The ultimate result of the battle was very different from
what might have been expected. While the MacGregors
were hunted and harried through all their fastnesses, the
52
COLQUHON
Facing page 52.
CLAN COLQUHOUN 53
Colquhouns quietly settled again on their lovely loch shore,
and their subsequent fortunes illustrated well the old
saying, " Happy is the nation that has no history." From
the foot of Glenfruin to the head of Loch Lomond, and
over the hills along the whole side of the Gareloch and
Loch Long to Arrochar, stretch the fair mountain posses-
sions of the Chiefs of Colquhoun at the present hour. On
Gareloch side the fair garden city of Helensburgh has
risen on their estate ; and their possessions include not only
their ancient lands of the time of the battle of Glenfruin,
but also the territories of the Macaulays at Ardencaple,
and of the wild MacFarlanes at Arrochar. There is no
lovelier avenue in the Highlands than that from the south
gateway below Glenfruin, which winds along the silvan
shores of the loch for a mile and a half, to Rossdhu, and
thence for another mile northwards on the road to Luss.
Rossdhu itself stands, a stately seat, on its promontory,
with deer park and noble woods about it; and the
Colquhoun village of Luss, at the foot of its own beautiful
glen, remains, in spite of the streams of tourists who pass
it by in steamers and motor cars, one of the most
sequestered and unspoiled spots in all the Highlands.
Curiously enough the original seat of the family was
not on Loch Lomond side at all. Dunglass Castle, just
below Bowling on the opening Firth of Clyde, at the spot
where the old Roman Wall is believed to have had its
western end, was the early seat of the race, and the three-
mile stretch down the western shore of the Firth thence to
Dunbarton rock formed the old barony of Colquhoun
from which the family took its name. Some five centuries
ago, however, the laird of Colquhoun married the heiress
of the older lairds of Luss, and thus by and by the head-
quarters of the family were removed to Loch Lomond side.
Here the heads of the house seem to have steadily
increased in prosperity, and the followers of their name
to have grown in numbers. For the most part they appear
to have been a peaceful race, and it was not until towards
the end of the sixteenth century that they began to be
mixed up in the distressful business of the making of
history. Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, the chief of that time,
in 1582 purchased the heritable crownership or coroner-
ship of Dunbartonshire, to be held blench of the Crown
for the annual fee of one penny; and it was this
Sir Humphrey who, ten years later, first came into con-
flict with Clan Gregor. In face of an assault by the
MacGregor clansmen from the other side of the loch, he
was forced to take refuge in his strong castle of Bannochra,
54 CLAN COLQUHOUN
of which the ruin is still to be seen in Glenfruin, and here,
it is said, he fell a victim to the treachery of his servant.
This man, in lighting the chief up the stair at night, so
managed his torch as to throw the light upon his master,
and make him a mark for the arrow of an enemy outside,
by whom Sir Humphrey was shot at and slain.
The story goes that the death of the chief was brought
about by his second brother, John. At any rate an entry
in the diary of Robert Birrell, burgess of Edinburgh, dated
3oth November, 1592, mentions that " John Cachoune was
beheidit at the Crosse at Edinburghe for murthering of
his auen brother the Lairde of Lusse." Further confirma-
tion of the tradition that John was the guilty man is to be
found in the fact that Sir Humphrey was succeeded, not
by his second but by his third brother, Sir Alexander
Colquhoun.
This chief, Sir Alexander, was the man who figures in
the great contest with the MacGregors at Glenfruin. In
his introduction to Rob Roy Sir Walter Scott lays the
blame of beginning the feud upon the Colquhouns. His
narrative runs, " Two of the MacGregors, being
benighted, asked shelter in a house belonging to a
dependent of the Colquhouns, and were refused. They
then retired to an outhouse, took a wedder from the fold,
killed it, and supped off the carcase, for which they offered
payment to the owner. The Laird of Luss, however,
unwilling to be propitiated by the offer made to his tenant,
seized the offenders, and by the summmary process which
feudal barons had at their command, caused them to be
condemned and executed." Sir Walter adds that " the
MacGregors verified this account of the feud by appealing
to the proverb current among them, execrating the hour
when the black wedder with the white tail was ever
lambed." There is at the same time another and probably
a truer account of the outbreak of the trouble. It would
appear that the MacGregors were instigated to attack the
Colquhouns by Archibald, Earl of Argyll, who had his
own ends to serve by bringing trouble on both clans. As
a result of the constant raids by the MacGregors, thus
brought about, Sir Alexander Colquhoun in 1602 obtained
a licence from James VI. to arm his clan. On the 7th of
the following February the two clans, each some three
hundred strong, came face to face in battle array in Glen-
fruin. The battle was so much a set affair that Alastair
MacGregor divided his force into two parties, he himself
attacking the Colquhouns in front, while his brother John
came upon them in the rear. The Colquhouns defended
CLAN COLQUHOUN 55
themselves bravely, killing among others this John Mac-
Gregor ; but, assailed on two sides, they were at last forced
to give way. They were pursued to the gates of Rossdhu
itself, and 140 of them were slain, including several near
kinsmen of the chief and a number of burgesses of Dun-
barton who had taken arms in his cause.
According to a well-known tradition, some forty
students and other Dunbarton folk had come up to witness
the battle. As a watch and guard MacGregor had set one
of his clansmen, Dugald Ciar Mhor, over these spectators.
On the Colquhouns being overthrown, MacGregor noticed
Dugald join in the pursuit, and asked him what he had
done with the young men, whereupon the clansman held
up his bloody dirk, and answered, " Ask that! '
The MacGregors followed up the defeat of the
Colquhouns by plundering and destroying the whole
estate. They drove off 600 cattle, 800 sheep and goats,
and 14 score horses, and burned every house and barn-
yard and destroyed the " Haill plenishing, guids, and
gear of the four-score pound land of Luss," while the
unfortunate chief, Sir Alexander Colquhoun, looked on
helpless from within the walls of the old castle of Rossdhu,
the ruin of which still stands on its rising ground behind
the modern mansion.
Retribution , swift and terrible, however, was visited
upon the MacGregors. Some sixty Colquhoun widows
in deep mourning, carrying their husbands' bloody shirts
on poles, appeared before James VI. at Stirling. It has
been suggested that this parade was not all genuine, that
these women were not all widows, and that the blood
on the shirts had not been shed in Glenfruin. But the
King was sufficiently moved, and forthwith letters of fire
and sword were granted against the MacGregors. Their
very name was proscribed and the sheltering of one of the
clan was made a crime punishable with death. While his
men were hunted with dogs along the hills, the chief,
Alastair Gregor, was induced across the Border by the
promise of his false friend, Argyll. The latter had given
his word that he would see him safely into England,
whither the King had by that time removed his court; but
no sooner was MacGregor across the Border than Argyll
had him arrested and carried back to Edinburgh, where on
2oth January, with four of his henchmen, he was tried,
condemned, and hanged at the Cross, while all his
possessions were declared forfeited.
A few years later a drama of another kind was carried
out at Rossdhu. The son of the chief who fought at
56 CLAN COLQUHOUN
Glenfruin was made a baronet. Sir John Colquhoun
married Lilias Graham, eldest sister of the great Marquess
of Montrose, and he returned the King's favour by proving
a devoted loyalist in the Civil War, for which action he
was fined ,£2,000 by Oliver Cromwell. Besides this, Sir
John had another trouble in hand. He appears to have
run away with a younger sister of the Marquess of Mon-
trose, Lady Catherine Graham, who had taken refuge at
Rossdhu. He was accused of having used the Black Art
for the purpose of enticing her, and of having employed,
among other witches and sorcerers, one Thomas Carlippis,
whom he kept as his ordinary servant. Along with
certain love philters, he is said to have used a certain
jewel of gold set with divers diamonds, rubies, and other
precious stones, and from this fact one may doubt whether
there was much necromancy after all in the attractions
with which he overcome the scruples of the fair young
lady. As a consequence, however, the gay baronet was
outlawed and excommunicated, and, what with the expense
of his love-jewels, his fines as a Royalist, and other extrava-
gances, he was presently forced to dispose of his life-rent
of the estates, and it was only with difficulty that posses-
sion was recovered by the bargaining of his shrewd
brother, Humphrey Colquhoun.
The male line of the Colquhouns came to an end with
Sir John's grandson, Sir Humphrey. This laird was a
member of the last Scottish Parliament and an ardent
opponent of the Union with England. He had an only
daughter, Anne, who was married to James Grant of
Pluscardine, second son of the Chief of the Grants. He
was most anxious that his daughter should inherit his
honours and estates, instead of his nephew, John
Colquhoun of Tillie-Colquhoun, now Tilliechewan, near
Balloch. To secure this he resigned his baronetcy and
estates into the hands of the King, and in 1704 received a
new charter securing the life-rent of these possessions to
himself and entailing them afterwards upon his daughter
and son-in-law. Then, in order that the name and estate
of Colquhoun should at no time become merged with those
of the Grants, he provided that if at any time the Laird of
Colquhoun should succeed to the lairdship of Grant,
the Colquhoun estate should at once pass to the next
Colquhoun heir.
Curiously enough, Sir Humphrey was not long dead
when his daughter's husband succeeded his elder brother
as Laird of Grant. Thereupon the Colquhoun estates
passed to Anne's second son, Ludovic Grant, who forth-
•Si
3
fn
O
CO
H
W
^^
-
C/3
CLAN COLQUHOUN 57
with took the name and designation of Sir Ludovic
Colquhoun. By and by, however, Sir Ludovic's elder
brother died, and he himself became Laird of Grant, and
had to resign the Luss estates to his younger brother, the
third son of Anne Colquhoun. Then came a curious
incident. A poacher was charged at Dunbarton Sheriff
Court with trespass on the lands of Sir James Colquhoun,
Bart., of Colquhoun and Luss. The lawyer who defended
him pleaded that the indictment was irrelevant, as the
accuser was not Sir James Colquhoun, Bart., and he won
his case. The fact was that in arranging for the succes-
sion to the estates, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun had failed to
provide for the simultaneous succession to the baronetcy,
which now really belonged to the descendant of his
nephew, John of Tillie-Colquhoun. The Laird of Luss,
however, was made a baronet of Great Britain in 1786, and
by the failure of the line of Tillie-Colquhoun, the original
baronetcy afterwards returned to his descendant.
In more recent days the Lairds of Luss have played a
not less distinguished part in Scottish affairs. They have
been members of Parliament and Lords Lieutenant; one
was a Principal Clerk of the Court of Session, and another
a Sheriff Depute of Dunbartonshire, while one member of
the family, John Colquhoun, was author of the well-known
open-air book, The Moor and the Loch, and his daughter,
Mrs. L. B. Walford, is one of the best-known novelists of
our time. In 1847, when Queen Victoria visited Dun-
barton Castle, she was received by Sir James Colquhoun
as Lord Lieutenant. The carriage in which he drove her
Majesty from and to the landing-place is still kept in the
coach-house at Rossdhu, and a picture representing Sir
James in the act of receiving her Majesty still hangs in the
hall.
Alas ! this same Sir James, twenty-six years later, came
to his end in a way which is recalled yet as one of the
most tragic of Loch Lomond's memories. On the i8th of
December, 1873, with five of his keepers he had gone to
the Colquhoun deer island of Inch Lonaig to secure
Christmas fare for his tenants and friends. On his return
in the heavily-loaded boat he had reached Inch Tavanach,
the " Monk's Island,'-' off Luss, when, in a sudden storm
the boat was swamped and all on board perished.
Sir Iain Colquhoun, the present possessor of the estates
and holder of the title, is the third successor since then.
Before the war he held a commission in the Scots Guards,
and was a noted athlete, winning the light-weight boxing
championship of the British army. On the outbreak of
58 CLAN COLQUHOUN
war in 1914 he went to the front in France, where he
greatly distinguished himself, won the D.S.O. with bar,
was mentioned in dispatches and held the rank of Major.
He is now Lord-Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire.
SEPTS OF CLAN COLQUHOUN
Cowan
Kirkpatrick
MacCowan
Kilpatrick
Macachounich
COMYN
Facing page 58.
CLAN COMYN
BADGE : Lus mhic Chuimein (cuminum) Cumin plant.
THERE was no greater name in Scotland towards the end
of the thirteenth century than that of Comyn. With their
headquarters in Badenoch the chiefs and gentlemen of the
clan owned broad lands in nearly every part of Scotland,
and the history of the time is full of their deeds and the
evidences of their influence.
Writers who seek to derive this clan from a Celtic
source cite the existence of two abbots of lona of the name
who held office in the years 597 and 657 respectively. The
later of these was known as Comyn the Fair, and from one
or other of them the name of Fort Augustus, " Kil
Chuimein," was probably derived. Another origin of the
family is recounted by Wyntoun in his Cronykil of
Scotland. According to this writer there was at the court
of Malcolm III. a young foreigner. His occupation was
that of Door-ward or usher of the royal apartment, but, to
begin with, he knew only two words of the Scottish
language, " Cum in," and accordingly became known by
that name. He married the only daughter of the king's
half-brother Donald, and his descendants therefore
represented the legitimate line of the old Celtic kings of
Scotland, as against the illegitimate line descending from
Malcolm III. The Comyns themselves claim descent
from Robert de Comyn, Earl of Northumberland, who
fell along with Malcolm III. at the battle of Alnwick in
1093. That Robert de Comyn, again, claimed descent,
through the Norman Counts de Comyn, from no less a
personage than Charlemagne. The probability appears
to be that a scion of the house of Northumberland came
north in the days of Malcolm III., and obtained lands in
the county of Roxburgh, where one of the name is found
settled in the reign of Malcolm's son, David I.
No record is left of the family's rise to influence and
power, but in the course of the next two hundred years
the Comyns managed to make themselves by far the most
powerful house in Scotland. Richard de Comyn stood
high in the service of William the Lion, and his -son
William, marrying Marjory, Countess of Buchan, became
lord of that great northern earldom. In the days of King
Alexander II., Comyn, the great lord of Kilbride, and his
59
60 CLAN COMYN
wife, were the chief builders of Glasgow cathedral. By
this fact appears to hang a pretty and pathetic tale. When
the great work was half done Comyn died. His wife,
however, in loving faithfulness completed the building,
which may be taken, almost as it stands to-day, as a monu-
ment of her wifely love and faith. It is an interesting fact
that there exist in the lower church which they built two
fine likenesses of the Comyn Lord of Kilbride and his lady,
carved in stone. Along with them is a life-like carved head
of Alexander II. himself, and the three are believed to be
the earliest existing portraits of historic personages in
Scotland. The building of Glasgow cathedral above
referred to took place about the year 1258, and some idea
of the enduring quality of the work may be gathered from
the fact that the oaken timbers of the roof, taken down
some few years ago, remained as sound as on the day when
the Lord of Kilbride and his lady saw them placed in
position on the shrine.
A few years later, in the reign of Alexander III., there
were in Scotland, according to the historian Fordun,
three powerful earls, Buchan, Menteith, and Atholl, and
no fewer than thirty-two knights of the name of Comyn.
There was also Comyn, Lord of Strathbogie. As Lords
of Badenoch they owned the formidable stronghold of
Lochindorb in that district, and a score of castles through-
out the country besides. Stories of their deeds and
achievements wellnigh fill the annals of the north of that
time. In the boyhood of Alexander III., when Henry III.
of England was doing his best by fraud and force to
bring Scotland under his power, it was Walter Comyn,
Earl of Menteith, who stood out as the most patriotic of
all the Scottish nobles to resist the attempts of the English
king When Henry, at the marriage of his daughter to
the boy-king of Scots, suggested that the latter should
render fealty for the kingdom of Scotland, it was probably
Walter Comyn who put the answer into Alexander's mouth
" That he had come into England upon a joyful and
pacific errand, and would not treat upon so arduous a
question without the advice of the Estates of his realm."
And when Henry marched towards the Scottish Border at
the head of an army, it was Walter Comyn who collected
a Scottish host, and made the English king suddenly
modify his designs. Alas 1 at the very moment when he
seemed to have achieved his purpose, when the English
faction had been driven out, and Alexander and the
Comyns, with the queen-mother, the famous Marie de
Couci, had established a powerful government in Scot-
CLAN COMYN 61
land, the Earl of Menteith suddenly died. The incident
was tragic. In England it was said his death had been
caused by a fall from his horse, but the truth appears to
be that an English baron named Russell had won the
affections of Corny n's wife, and that she poisoned her
husband to make way for her paramour. It is agreeable
to know that Russell and the faithless countess were shortly
afterwards hounded from the kingdom. From that time
the Earldom of Menteith appears to have passed into other
hands, successively Bullocks, Stewarts, and Grahams.
On the death of the Maid of Norway, the infant queen
of Scotland, in the year 1290, John Comyn, Lord of
Badenoch, known popularly as the Black Comyn, was one
of the twelve claimants to the Scottish throne, and the
tradition of the marriage of the young Comyn of Malcolm
III.'s time with the daughter of Donald, King Duncan's
legitimate son, is proved to be authentic by the fact that
the Lord of Badenoch 's claim to the throne was based
upon that descent. He was among the knights who
supported King John Baliol against Edward I.-'s invasion
in 1297, but was one of those forced to surrender in the
castle of Dunbar after the defeat of the Scots at that place.
On the patriot Wallace giving up the governorship of
Scotland after his defeat at the battle of Falkirk, John
Comyn, the younger of Badenoch, otherwise the Red
Comyn, was chosen as one of the two governors of Scot-
land, and in 1302, he, along with Sir Simon Eraser,
defeated three English armies in one day at the famous
battle of Roslin. By way of reprisal Edward, a few
months later, marched another army into the north, and
took Corny n's great stronghold of Lochindorb. Comyn,
nevertheless, afterwards bravely carried on a guerilla
warfare against several invasions by the English king.
Finally, however, defeated at the passage of the Forth,
where Wallace had won his great victory of Stirling
Bridge, Comyn was forced to surrender.
In these wars against Edward of England the Red
Comyn had a very personal interest. His mother was
Marjory, sister of King John Baliol, and accordingly he
had an immediate claim to the throne of Scotland should
anything happen to King John's sons, the young Edward
and Henry Baliol, at that time minors and captives. This
claim was superior to that of Robert the Bruce, and
inevitably brought these two great families, the Comyns
and the Bruces, into bitter conflict. Comyn had further
reason to look with hope on his chance of succeeding to
the crown. He had married Johanna, daughter of
62 CLAN COMYN
William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, whose mother
was Isabella, widow of John, King of England, grand-
father of Edward I.
There were also other immediate causes of feud between
the Corny ns and the Bruces. After the crown had been
awarded to Baliol the Bruces kept apart from public
affairs, maintained allegiance to Edward I., and, living
mostly in England, kept possession of their great estates.
Baliol and the Comyns, on the other hand, righting hard
for the independence of Scotland, suffered both in liberty
and land. Resenting Bruce's inaction, Baliol confiscated
his estate of Annandale, and gave it to John Comyn, Earl
of Buchan, who forthwith seized and occupied Bruce's
great stronghold of Lochmaben. This insult the Bruces
never forgave. At the same time it probably rankled in
the Red Comyn's mind that, while he himself, who had
the better claim to the throne, and had done and suffered
so much for Scotland^ was regarded with disfavour, the
Bruces, who had consulted only their own ease and
interest, and had maintained allegiance to the English
king, should have been practically promised the reversion
of the Scottish crown by Edward I.
Matters were in this state when, according to Wyntoun,
the two barons found themselves riding together from
Stirling. The question of the claim to the throne was
broached, and Bruce, it is said, made the proposal that
one of them should give his estates to the other, and be
supported by that other in an attempt for the crown.
Comyn, Wyntoun says, agreed to give up his claim to the
throne and accept Bruce's lands, and, as a result of the
compact, became acquainted with the plans and alliances
Bruce was forming for his attempt. Then, when Bruce
was at the English court, Comyn revealed the matter to
Edward I.
This may be merely a popular tale, but nothing else has
been brought forward to account for what followed.
Bruce, it is said, questioned at court by Edward I.,
asked leave to go to his lodging for papers proving his
innocence. There he received a warning from his young
kinsman, the Earl of Gloucester, who sent him a feather
or a pair of spurs, and forthwith he fled to the north. Five
days later, as he crossed the Border, he met a messenger
of Comyn's on his way to the English court. The man
was slain and the letter seized upon him proved the
treachery of Comyn. A few days later — it was in the
month of February, 1305 — the two great barons met at the
Justice Ayre in Dumfries. To discuss their difference
COMYN, LORD OF KILBRIDE
CONTRIBUTOR TO THE BUILDING OF GLASGOW CATHEDRAL, A.D. 1 258
Facing page 62.
CLAN COMYN 63
they retired to the church of the Minorites, which had been
built by Comyn's grandmother, the famous Devorgilla,
heiress of the ancient Lords of Galloway. There, as all
the world knows, question, reproach, and retort ended in
Bruce losing his temper, drawing his dagger, and stab-
bing the Red Corny n in the throat. The deed was
completed by Bruce's henchman, Kirkpatrick of Close-
burn, with the unforgotten exclamation " I mak siccar,"
and Sir Robert Comyn, uncle of the slain man, who
rushed in to save him, met the same fate.
It was this act which drove Bruce to open war, and
brought about the ultimate freedom of Scotland ; but
during the struggle which ensued the king again and again
paid bitterly for the rash deed he had done at the high
altar of the Minorites in Dumfries. Alexander of Argyll
had married the Red Comyn's daughter, and for that
reason his son, John of Lome, was Bruce's bitterest foe,
and more than once put the king to the utmost peril of
his life. John of Lome, of course, was overcome at last,
and his descendants survive only as private gentlemen,
the MacDougalls of Dunolly. The same fate sooner or
later overtook all the other connections of the great house
of Comyn. The Corny ns themselves, under the leader-
ship of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, were finally defeated by
Bruce at the battle of Inverury. For many days, sick to
death, the king had been carried about in a litter, and the
hearts of his followers had begun to fail, when the Earl of
Buchan and Sir David of Brechin made the attack; where-
upon the king, calling for his warhorse, mounted, led his
little force to battle, and vanquished his sickness and his
enemies the Comyns at the same time. Buchan fled to
England, while Bruce burned his earldom from end to end
to such effect
That eftir that, weile fifty yheir,
Men menyt " the Heirschip of Bouchane."
The son of the Red Comyn was the last of his line, and
about the time of his death the collateral branch which
held the earldom of Buchan also became extinct.
In the churchyard of Bourtie is to be seen the effigy of
a knight said to have been one of the Comyns slain in the
battle of Inverury.
Gradually throughout the country the Comyns were
supplanted by other families. An instance of this is the
occurrence enshrined in the tradition regarding the trans-
ference of Castle Grant on Speyside to the family of its
present owners. According to tradition a younger son of
64 CLAN COMYN
Grant of Stratherrick eloped with a daughter of a Macgregor
chief. With thirty followers the pair fled to Strathspey,
and found a hiding-place in a cavern not far from the
castle, then known as Freuchie. The Comyns naturally
looked with disfavour upon such an invasion, and tried
to dislodge the band, but Grant kept possession of the
cave. Then Macgregor descended Strathspey at the head
of a party of his clan, and demanded his daughter. His
son-in-law was astute. Receiving him with every show of
respect, he contrived in the torchlight and among the
shadows of the wood to make his men appear a much
larger following than his father-in-law had supposed, and
a complete reconciliation took place. Grant then pushed
his advantage farther. He complained of the attacks of
the Comyns, and induced Macgregor to join in an assault
on Freuchie. By stratagem and valour they took the
stronghold ; the chief of the Comyns was slain in the attack,
and his skull remains a trophy in possession of the Earl
of Seafield to the present day.
The Comyns at Dunphail had a similar fate, which is
well told by Mr. George Bain in his book on the Findhorn.
When Bruce's nephew, Thomas Randolph, was made
Earl of Moray, the Comyns found their old privileges as
Rangers of the king's forest of Darnaway restricted. By
way of reprisal the Comyns set out, a thousand strong,
under the leadership of young Alastair of Dunphail, to
burn Randolph's new great hall at Darnaway. The force,
however, was ambushed by the Earl at Whitemire, and
cut to pieces. Young Alastair Corny n fought his way to
the Findhorn. He found the further bank lined by the
Earl's men, but, throwing his standard among them with
the shout " Let the bravest keep it," he leapt the chasm
at the spot wrongly called Randolph's Leap, and with
four of his followers made his escape. Moray then
besieged Alastair's father in his Castle of Dunphail, and
brought the garrison to starvation point. On a dark
night, however, the young man managed to heave some
bags of meal from a high bank into the stronghold. Next
day, by means of a bloodhound, he was tracked to a cave
on the Divie. He begged to be allowed out to die by the
sword, but was smoked to death by the Earl's men. Then
the heads of himself and his companions were thrown into
his father's courtyard, with the shout " Here is beef for
your bannocks." The old chief took up the head of his
son. " It is indeed a bitter morsel," he said, " but I will
gnaw the last bone of it before I surrender." In the end
the little garrison, driven by hunger, sallied out and were
CLAN COMYN 65
cut to pieces. Early in the nineteenth century the minister
of Edinkilly found the skeletons of young Alastair and his
companions, seven in number, at a spot still known from
the fact as the " grave of the headless Comyns."
The Comyns were still powerful, however, after Bruce's
time. Edward III., when he overran Scotland in the
interest of Edward Baliol, made David Comyn, Earl of
Atholl, governor of the country. It was he whom Bruce's
brother-in-law, Sir Andrew Moray, overthrew and slew at
the battle of Kilblene, and it was his countess whom Moray
was besieging in the stronghold of Lochindorb when word
arrived that the English king and his army were at hand.
Moray, it is said, put courage into his little force by wait-
ing to adjust his girths, and even to mend a thong of his
armour, before retreating. But he knew the passes of the
Findhorn, and led his little company into safety across the
river at Randolph's Leap.
At a later day the Comyns had descended to be merely
a warring clan among the clans. In their feud with the
Mackintoshes it was they who attempted to drown the latter
out by raising the waters round the castle in Loch Moy,
when the attempt was defeated by a Mackintosh clansmen
issuing on a raft at night, breaking the barrier, and letting
the flood loose upon the besiegers. On another occasion
the Comyns, pretending peace, invited the Mackintoshes to
a feast at Rait Castle, where at a secret signal, each Comyn
clansman was to stab a Mackintosh to the heart. But
Comyn's daughter had revealed the plot to her Mackintosh
lover; the Mackintoshes gave the signal first, and the
ri plotters were hoist with their own petard.
Still another incident of the long feud with the
Mackintoshes arose out of jealousy regarding a fair dame
of the time. Comyn of Badenoch had reason to resent the
attentions paid to his wife by his neighbour, Mackintosh
of Tyrinie, and the feeling reached its climax when
Mackintosh presented the lady with no less a gift than a
Dull and twelve cows. Comyn, thinking it time to
interfere, invited Mackintosh and his followers to a feast,
and slew them all. As the Comyns were slowly ousted by
their Mackintosh and Macpherson neighbours they were
driven to wild and lawless deeds, and on one occasion, in
reprisal, Alexander Macpherson, known as the Revenge-
ful, slew nine of their chief men in a cave to which they
had resorted for hiding.
The Comyns, however, were not altogether ex-
inguished by the warfare and feuds in which they played
>o striking and unfortunate a part. In the eighteenth
VOL. i. e
66 CLAN COMYN
century their chief was a simple gentleman, Gumming of
Altyre on the Findhorn. He represented the knight who
fell with his chief, the Red Comyn, in the church of the
Minorites at Dumfries. That knight was Sir Robert
Comyn, fourth son of John, Lord of Badenoch, who died
about 1275. Early in the eighteenth century, Robert
Cumming of Altyre married Lucy, daughter of Sir
Ludovic Gordon, Bart., of Gordonstown, lineally
descended from William, Earl of Sutherland and his wife
the Princess Margaret, daughter of King Robert the
Bruce, and from George, Earl of Huntly, and his wife, the
Princess Jean, daughter of King James I. Robert
Cumming's great-great-grandson, Alexander Penrose
Cumming, through this connection inherited the estate of
Gordonstown, near Elgin, assumed the name of Gordon,
and was created a baronet in 1804. He was M.P. for the
Dumfries burghs. The second baronet was member for
the Elgin burghs at the time of the Reform Bill. He
married a daughter of Campbell of Islay and grand
daughter of John, Duke of Argyll, by his duchess, the
famous beauty, Elizabeth Gunning. His second son was
Roualeyn George, the famous lion-hunter, while his
youngest daughter is the well-known traveller and author,
Miss Constance F. Gordon-Cumming, and the present
baronet is his grandson.
Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Bart., of Altyre, is the
fourth holder of the title. He succeeded his father in
1866, and saw active service as a Captain and Lieut.-
Colonel of the Scots Fusilier Guards. He holds the medal
with clasp for the South African Campaign of 1879, the
medal with clasp and the bronze star for the Egyptian
Campaign of 1882, and two clasps for the Nile Expedition
of 1884. His possessions in the county, some 38,500
acres, are considerable for a private gentleman, but will
hardly compare with the vast possessions once owned by
his ancestors, the great chiefs of the Comyns of the days
of King Alexander III.
It should be added that a considerable body of the
Comyns at one time, taking offence at being refused inter-
ment in the family burial-place, changed their name to
Farquharson, as descendants of Ferquhard, son of
Alexander, sixth laird of Altyre, in the middle of the
fifteenth century.
SEPTS OF CUN COMYN
Buchan
MacNiven
Niven
DAVIDSON
Facing page 66.
CLAN DAVIDSON
BADGE : Lus nam Braoileag (vaccineum vitis idea) Red whortle-
berr3r.
PIBROCH : Spaidsearach-Chaisteal Thulaich.
ACCORDING to the Highland manuscript believed to be
written by one MacLauchlan, bearing the date 1467, and
containing an account of the genealogies of Highland
clans down to about the year 1450, which was accepted as
authoritative by Skene in his Celtic Scotland, and believed
to embody the common tradition of its time, the origin of
the Davidsons is attributed to a certain Gilliecattan Mhor,
chief of Clan Chattan in the time of David I. This
personage, it is stated, had two sons, Muirich Mhor and
Dhai Dhu. From the former of these was descended Clan
Mhuirich or Macpherson, and from the latter Clan Dhai
or Davidson. Sir Aeneas Macpherson, the historian of
the clan of that name, states that both the Macphersons
and the Davidsons were descended from Muirich, parson
of Kingussie in the twelfth century. Against this state-
ment it has been urged that the Roman kirk had no parson
at Kingussie at that time. But this fact need not militate
against the existence of Muirich at that place. The Culdee
church was still strong in the twelfth century, and, as its
clergy were allowed to marry, there was nothing to hinder
Muirich from being the father of two sons, the elder of
whom might carry on his name, and originate Clan
Macpherson, while the younger, David, became ancestor
of the Davidsons. Still another account is given in the
Kinrara MS. upon which Mr. A. M. Mackintosh, the
historian of Clan Mackintosh, chiefly relies : This MS.
names David Dubh as ancestor of the clan, but makes him
of the fourteenth century, and declares him to be of the
race of the Comyns. His mother, it says, was Slane,
daughter of Angus, sixth chief of the Mackintoshes, and
his residence was at Nuid in Badenoch. Upon the whole,
it seems most reasonable to accept the earliest account, that
contained in the MS. of 1467, which no doubt embodied
the traditions considered most authentic in its time.
The chiefs of the Davidsons are said to have been
settled in early times at Invernahavon, a small estate in
Badenoch, at the junction of the Truim with the Spey, and
67
68 CLAN DAVIDSON
when they emerge into history in 1370 or 1386 the holders
of the name appear to have been of considerable number,
and in close alliance with the Mackintoshes from whose
forebears they claim descent.
The event known as the battle of Invernahavon is well
known as a landmark in Highland history. According
to commonly accepted tradition, the older Clan Chattan,
descended from Gilliecattan Mhor of the time of Malcolm
Canmore or David I., saw the line of its chiefs come to an
end in the latter days of the thirteenth century in the
person of an only child, a daughter named Eva. This
heiress in 1291 married Angus, the young sixth chief of the
Mackintoshes, who along with her received from Gilpatrick,
his father-in-law, not only the lands of Glenlui and
Locharkaig, but also the chiefship of Clan Chattan. The
lands of Glenlui and Locharkaig, however, appear to have
been seized and settled by the Camerons, and eighty or
ninety years later the dispute regarding their ownership
came to a head. After many harryings of the Camerons
by the Mackintoshes and of the Mackintoshes by the
Camerons, it appears that in 1370 or 1386 — accounts differ
as to the date — a body of some four hundred Camerons
made an incursion into Badenoch. As they returned
laden with booty they were intercepted at Invernahavon
by Lachlan Mackintosh, the eighth chief, with a body of
Clan Chattan which included not only Mackintoshes but
Macphersons and Davidsons, each led by its respective
chieftain. At the moment of attack a dispute arose
between the chiefs of these two septs as to which should
have the honour of commanding Clan Chattan's right
wing. Macpherson claimed the honour as male represen-
tative of the chiefs of the older Clan Chattan ; Davidson,
on the other hand, insisted that he should have the post as
the oldest cadet.
These claims would appear to uphold the account of
the origin of these two septs which derives them, not from
the Mackintoshes but from Gilliecattan Mhor, chief of the
older Clan Chattan.
Mackintosh, forced to decide in the urgency of the
moment, gave the post of honour to the Davidson chief,
and as a result, the Macphersons, highly offended, with-
drew from the battle. As a result of this, the Mackintoshes
and Davidsons, greatly outnumbered, were routed and cut
to pieces. What followed is the subject of a tradition
given by Bishop Mackintosh in his History of Moray.
According to this tradition Mackintosh sent his bard to the
Macpherson camp, where he treated the Macphersons
CLAN DAVIDSON 69
round their camp fires to a taunting ballad describing the
cowardice of men who forsook their friends in the hour of
danger. This, it is said, so enraged the Macpherson chief
that he forthwith called his men to arms, and fell upon the
Camerons in their camp at midnight, where he cut them
to pieces, and put them to flight.
This battle at Invernahavon appears to have been one
of the incidents which directly led up to the famous combat
of " threttie against threttie before King Robert III. on
the North Inch of Perth in 1396. According to the
chronicler Wyntoun, the parties who fought in that combat
were the Clan Quhele and the Clan Kay, and authorities
have always differed as to who these clans were. Accord-
ing to some, the battle was a direct outcome of the mutual
jealousy of the Macphersons and Davidsons following the
rupture at Invernahavon; and the Gaelic name of the
Davidsons, Clan Dhai, which might easily be mistaken
by a Lowland chronicler for Kay, lends some superficial
colour to the claim. It is scarcely likely, however, that
the Macphersons and Davidsons were at that time so
important as to warrant a great national trial by combat
such as that on the North Inch, which has made such a
striking mark in Scottish history. The probability seems
rather to be that the combat within the barriers before
King Robert III. was between Clan Chattan as a whole
and Clan Cameron. According to the Kinrara MS., Clan
Quhewil was led on the North Inch by a Mackintosh
chieftain, Shaw, founder of the Rothiemurcus branch of
the family.
Maclan, in his Costumes of the Clans of Scotland, is
evidently seeking a pretext when he asserts that it was
mortification at defeat on the North Inch which drove the
Davidsons into obscurity, and finally induced the chief
with some of his followers to remove further north, and
settle in the county of Cromarty. It seems more likely
that the decimation of their ranks at Invernahavon, and
the losses caused by subsequent feuds, so reduced the
numbers of the clan as to render it of small account during
the succeeding century.
Lachlan Shaw in his MS. history of Moray states that
early in the seventeenth century the Invernahavon family
changed its name from Davidson to Macpherson, the
individual who did so being James of Invernahavon,
commonly called Seumas Lagach, great-grandfather of
John of Invernahavon. But Mr. A. M. Mackintosh, the
historian of Clan Chattan, has ascertained that the James
of Invernahavon referred to was son of a John Macpherson,
70 CLAN DAVIDSON
who, according to Sir Aeneas Macpherson's MS., had
feued the property. It can thus be seen how Lachlan Shaw
made the mistake of supposing that the Davidsons of
Invernahavon had changed their name.
The historian of Clan Chattan above referred to offers
another theory to account for the comparative disappear-
ance of Clan Davidson from the historic page, by pointing
out that two of the name were concerned in the murder of
Lachlan, the fourteenth Mackintosh chief, in 1524. One
of these two, Milmoir MacDhaibhidh, was the chief's
foster-brother, but believed that Mackintosh had helped
to destroy his prospects of marrying a rich widow, and
accordingly, on 25th March, along with John Malcolmson
and other accomplices, fell upon the chief and slew him
while hunting at Ravoch on the Findhorn. For this deed
the three assassins were seized and kept in chains in the
dungeon on Loch-an-Eilan till 1531, when, after trial,
Malcolmson was beheaded and quartered, and the two
Davidsons were tortured, hanged, and had their heads
fixed on poles at the spot where they committed the crime.
Mr. Mackintosh also points out that another Davidson,
Donald MacWilliam vie Dai dui, conspired with the son
of the above John Malcolmson against William, the
fifteenth Mackintosh chief in 1550, when the head of that
chief was brought to the block by the Earl of Huntly at
Strathbogie. The Davidsons who did these things,
however, were merely servants and humble holders of the
name, and their acts can hardly have brought the whole
clan into serious disrepute.
That the Davidsons did not altogether cease to play a
part in important events is shown by an entry in the
Exchequer Rolls (iv. 510) in 1429. This is a record of
a distribution of cloth of divers colours to Walter
Davidson and his men by command of the King, and the
gift is taken to be possibly an acknowledgment of the
loyalty of the Davidson chief and his clan during the
Highland troubles of the year.
Later popular tradition has associated the Davidsons
with the estate of Davidston in Cromarty, the laird of
which is mentioned in 1501 and 1508, in the course of a
legal action taken against Dingwall and Tain by the
Burgh of Inverness. Here again, however, the historian
of Clan Chattan has pointed out that, according to Fraser
Mackintosh's Invernessiana, pages 175-184, the owners of
the estate of Davidston were a family named Denoon or
Dunound.
In any case, however, the Davidsons had taken root in
CLAN DAVIDSON 71
this neighbourhood. In the second half of the seventeenth
century Donald Davidson owned certain land and other
property in Cromarty. His son, Alexander Davidson, was
town clerk of the county town, and his son William
succeeded him in the same office. In 1719 this William
Davidson married Jean, daughter of Kenneth Bayne of
Knockbayne, nephew and heir of Duncan Bayne of
Tulloch. The son of this pair, Henry Davidson, born in
1729, made- a great fortune as a London West India
merchant. His wife was the daughter of a shipmaster of
Cromarty, who was son of Bernard MacKenzie, last
Bishop of Ross. In 1763, when the estate of Tulloch was
sold by the creditors of the ancient owners, the Baynes, it
was purchased by Henry Davidson for ,£10,500, and has
since been the seat of his family.
On the death of Henry Davidson, first of Tulloch, in
1781, he was succeeded by his brother Duncan. This laird
was an energetic and notable man in his day. On the
Tulloch estate he carried out vast improvements, including
the reclamation of a great stretch of land from the sea,
and the construction of the main road from Dingwall to
the North. He was provost of Dingwall from 1784 till
1786, and M.P. for Cromarty from 1790 to 1796. This
laird's son, Henry, was, like his uncle, a successful West
India merchant in London, and, like his father, was a
g-eat planter of woods and reclaimer of land. His son,
uncan, the fourth laird of Tulloch, began life as an
officer in the Grenadier Guards. His first wife was a
daughter of the third Lord MacDonald, and his return to
Parliament as member for Cromarty in 1826 was the
occasion of great celebrations in the countryside. As a
politician he was chiefly noted for his opposition to the
Reform Bill. An enthusiastic sportsman, he was the
reviver of horse racing at the Northern Meeting at
Inverness, and he drove the first coach which ran from
Perth to Inverness, on the Queen's birthday in 1841. At
his death in 1881 he was succeeded by his eldest son,
Duncan, who married Georgina, daughter of John
MacKenzie, M.B., of the Gareloch family, and in turn
died in 1889. His son, the sixth and present laird, who
was born in 1865, married in 1887 Gwendoline, daughter
of William Dalziel MacKenzie of Farr and of Fawley
Court, Buckinghamshire. He was trained for a com-
mercial career, but after fourteen years in London, his
health breaking down, he retired to live at Tulloch. He
takes an active part in county business, is a J.P., D.L.,
and Honorary Sheriff-Substitute, as well as county
72 CLAN DAVIDSON
commissioner for the Boy Scouts and chairman of various
county boards. A keen sportsman and horticulturist, he
takes a lively interest in farming, gardening, shooting,
fishing, and all games, and as a reflection of his tastes the
gardens and policies of Tulloch Castle are among the most
beautiful in the north.
Tulloch is an ancient barony held by rights from the
Crown. The first Davidson lairds took much pleasure in
filling the castle with valuable portraits and works of art,
and it was a cause of much regret when in July, 1845, tne
castle was burned down and most of its contents destroyed.
On 25th March, 1909, with a view to the formation of
a Clan Davidson Society, the Laird of Tulloch called a
meeting of holders of the name at the Hotel Metropole in
London. Some sixty members of the clan were present,
when it was proposed, seconded, and carried that Davidson
of Tulloch be recognised and acknowledged as chief of the
clan. The act was questioned in a letter to the Northern
Chronicle, in which the writer pointed out that, while for
a long period of years writers on Highland history had all
pointed to Tulloch as the chief, this must be taken as an
error seeing that The Mackintosh was the only chief of
Clan Chattan. In proof of this statement it was pointed
out that in 1703 twenty persons named Dean alias
Davidson had at Inverness signed a band of manrent
declaring that they and their ancestors had been followers,
dependents, and kinsmen to the lairds of Mackintosh, and
were still in duty bound to own and maintain the claim,
and to follow, assist, and defend the honourable person of
Lachlan Mackintosh of that ilk as their true and lawful
chieftain. A long correspondence followed pro and con,
but it was pointed out by later writers that the acknowledg-
ment of Mackintosh by twenty Davidsons as supreme head
of the Clan Chattan confederacy did not prevent the
Davidson sept from possessing and following a chief of
their own. As a matter of fact, history shows them to have
had a chief at the battle of Invernahavon, and by all the
laws of Highland genealogy the clansmen were fully
entitled to meet and confirm the claim of their present
leader and head.
Two other landed families of the name In the north are
the Davidsons of Cantray and the Davidsons of Inchmarlo.
The former are believed to have been settled on the lands
of Cantray, an ancient property of the Dallases, for at
least two hundred years. In 1767-8 the lands of Cantray
and Croy were purchased by David Davidson, son of
William Davidson and Agnes MacKercher, who afterwards
CLAN DAVIDSON 73
added Clava to the estate. This laird married Mary,
daughter of George Cuthbert of Castlehill, Sheriff-
Substitute of Inverness, and is alluded to in the statistical
account of 1842 as " a man of singular sagacity, of most
active powers of mind, and practical good sense," and as
" a liberal-minded and fatherly landlord." His son,
another David, was knighted by King George III., and his
grandson, Hugh Grogan, the fifth laird, was convener of
the country of Inverness. His son, Hugh, the present laird,
as an officer of the Seaforth Highlanders, served through
the Afghan War of 1880, for which he holds a medal.
Inchmarlo, again, was purchased in 1838 by Duncan
Davidson, son of John Davidson of Tilliechetly and Dess-
wood on Deeside. The present laird of Inchmarlo is his
grandson, Duncan, while his youngest son's son is
Francis Duncan Davidson, late captain in the Cameron
Highlanders and now owner of Desswood.
It should be added that Davidson of Tulloch is
hereditary keeper of the royal castle of Dingwall.
Among notable holders of the name of Davidson
mention must be made of the redoubtable provost of
Aberdeen, Sir Robert Davidson, who led the burghers of
the city at the battle of Harlaw in 1411, and gallantly fell
at their head. It is said to be his armour which is still
treasured in the vestibule of the City Chambers at
Aberdeen, and when the great old church of St. Nicholas
in that city was being repaired a generation ago his
skeleton was recognised by a red cloth cap with which he
had been buried.
Another notable clansman was John Davidson, Regent
of St. Leonard's College at St. Andrews in the days of
Queen Mary, and afterwards the minister of Liberton near
Edinburgh, who quarrelled with the Regent Morton,
opposed the desire of James VI. to restore prelacy, excom-
municated Montgomerie, Bishop of Glasgow, at the desire
of the General Assembly in 1582, and was author of
Memorials of His Time.
All of the name of Davidson are not necessarily
members of the clan, but those of Highland descent are
still numerous enough to afford a handsome following for
their chief at the present hour.
SEPTS OP CWN DAVIDSON
Davie Davis
Dawson Dow
Kay Macdade
Macdaid MacDavid
CLAN DRUMMOND
BADGE : Lus mhic Righ Bhreatinn (thymis syrpillum) mother
of thyme.
PIBROCH : Spaidsearachd Duic Pheart, the Duke of Perth's March,
and the Lady Sarah Drummond.
IN view of the recent devastating war with Austria-
Hungary, it is curious to remember that, according
to tradition, one at least of the great historic houses of
Scotland derives its descent from Hungarian stock. The
commander of the vessel in which Edgar the Atheling,
with his mother and his sisters Margaret and Isabella, set
sail for Hungary to escape the usurpation of Harold, is
said to have been Maurice, son of George, son of Andrew,
King of Hungary. As every Scotsman knows, the
vessel was driven into the Firth of Forth, and the Princess
Margaret presently became the wife of the mighty
Canmore, Malcolm III., King of Scots, with far-reaching
effects on the subsequent history of Scotland. The King,
it is said, made Maurice Steward or Thane of Lennox, a
title still held by the Drummond chief, and bestowed upon
him the lands of Drymen on the Endrick, from which his
descendants took their name, and which they continued to
possess for some two hundred years. It is said to have
been in commemoration of their ancestor's achievement in
bringing Queen Margaret to Scotland that, when coats of
arms came into existence, the Drummonds adopted the
device of three bars wavy, or and gules, represent-
ing the sunset waves of the North Sea. In the time of
Alexander II., Maurice's great-great-grandson, Malcolm
Beg Drummond, further secured the status of his family
by marrying Ada, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, and
granddaughter of the High Steward of Scotland ; and his
grandson, Sir John Drummond of that ilk, Thane of
Lennox, appears in history as a stout defender of Scottish
liberty against the usurpation of Edward I. of England.
He was summoned to Parliament as one of the greatest
barons of the kingdom. It was his son, again, Sir
Malcolm Drummond, who suggested to King Robert the
Bruce the strewing of caltrops in the way of the English
74
DRUMMOND
Facing page 74.
CLAN DRUMMOND 75
cavalry at the battle of Bannockburn. " Gang warily,"
the family motto adopted by his descendants, is said to
bear reference to that suggestion. For his services on that
occasion he obtained from the King certain lands in
Perthshire, which had the effect of removing the family
seat from Loch Lomondside to the central district of
Scotland.
It was a few years later that the house made its first
alliance with the Royal family. Margaret Logie, the
beautiful, imperious second wife of Bruce's son, David II.,
was a daughter of the house of Drummond. Though she
was the widow of John de Logie, who had been executed
for his part in the great Soulis conspiracy against King
Robert the Bruce, King David was infatuated with the
spell of her beauty, and could refuse her nothing; and
with her extravagant pilgrimages to Canterbury and the
satisfaction of such personal spites as that by which she
induced the King to cast the Steward and his sons into
prison, she led David a pretty dance, till he divorced her
at Lent in 1369. Hereupon she collected her wealth,
betook herself to the Papal Court at Avignon, and
continued to make trouble till her death shortly afterwards.
Meantime, by the marriage of Sir John Drummond,
grandson of the Drummond who fought at Bannockburn,
to Mary the daughter and heiress of Sir William de
Montifex, the family had come into possession of Stobhall
on the Tay and large possessions in Perthshire, and a
further alliance with the royal house was made when
Sir John's eldest daughter Annabella became the wife of
King Robert III., and was crowned with him at Scone
in September, 1390. Through this marriage all the
succeeding Kings of Scotland and of Britain have been
descended from the House of Drummond, and there is
Drummond blood in the veins of most of the crowned
heads of Europe.
Annabella's elder brother, Sir Malcolm, married Isabel
Countess of Mar, sister of the Earl of Douglas who fell at
Otterburn. Sir Malcolm was murdered by Alexander
Stewart, natural son of the fierce Wolf of Badenoch and
grandson of Robert II., who forcibly married the Countess
and assumed the title of Earl of Mar, fighting under that
name at Harlaw and Inverlochy. Annabella's younger
brother, Sir John, who succeeded as Chief of the Drum-
monds, was Justiciar of Scotland.
But the house had not yet reached the summit of its
fortunes. The Justiciar's great-grandson, another Sir
John Drummond, of Cargill and Stobhall, was a dis-
76 CLAN DRUMMOND
tinguished statesman in the reign of James III., and for
his services as Ambassador Extraordinary to England, to
arrange the marriages of the King and his sons with
princesses of the House of York, was made a Lord of
Parliament in 1487.
Drummond, however, had secret hopes of seeing
another daughter of his house seated on the Scottish
throne. The King's eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay,
then a lad of sixteen, had already shown a striking
partiality for Lord Drummond's eldest daughter, the
Lady Margaret, and when the prince took arms against
his father, Lord Drummond appeared upon his side.
After the fall of James III. at Sauchieburn, the young
prince, now King James IV., embarked with his young
mistress upon a wonderful life of royal revels and
gaiety. At Linlithgow Palace a splendid succession of
shows and theatrical entertainments, of hunting parties by
day and dances and masked balls at night, were got up
for the pleasure of the youthful pair, while James lavished
priceless gifts upon his lovely young mistress. Deeply
enamoured, and in his youthful ardour, James, it is said,
became affianced to the beautiful girl, and intended to
make her his queen, and the advances of the royal lover
appear to have received every encouragement from her
father, Lord Drummond, both at Court and at the family
seat of Stobhall on the Tay. Something of the ardour of
the time and the glamour of the royal love match is to be
read in the stanzas of a poem of the period, " Tay is Bank,"
preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript. The poet, who
might be the royal lover himself, describes the spot at
blossom time:
Quhair Tay ran down with stremis stout,
Full strecht under Stobschaw;
and he describes in the most exuberant language the
charms of the lady herself :
This myld, meik, mansuet Mergrit,
This perle polist most quhyt,
Dame Natouns deir dochter discreit,
The dyamant of delyt;
Never forniet was to found on feit
Ane figour more perfyte,
Nor non on mold that did hir meit,
Mjcht merk hir wirth and myte.
The nobles of Scotland, however, had other views for
their sovereign's future. So long as the alliance with
CLAN DRUMMOND 77
the fair Lady Margaret remained only a distraction, they
were prepared to regard it as a mere sowing of wild oats,
but when the lady gave birth to a daughter, and it was
rumoured that she had been secretly married to the King,
they became seriously alarmed. Their desire was that
James should marry a daughter of the English royal
house, and when it became clear that the Lady Margaret
Drummond was a definite obstacle to the match, her fate
appears to have been sealed. Lord Drummond was just
then building his new mansion of Drummond Castle in
Strathearn, and one morning after breakfast there, in 1501,
the Lady Margaret, with her sisters, Lady Fleming and
Sybilla, were seized with sudden sickness, believed to
have been caused by poison, and in a few hours were dead.
The three lie buried " in a curious vault covered with three
fair blue marble stones joined close together about the
middle of the choir of the Cathedral Church of Dunblane."
At that time the family burying-place at Innerpeffray had
not yet been built.
Whatever his sins in conniving at this affair, Lord
Drummond was to see much sorrow in the years that
remained to him. His eldest son Malcolm died before him
unmarried, and his second son William, Master of
Drummond, had a darker fate. At that time the
Drummonds were endeavouring to set up a barony burgh
of Drummond, and the market cross which they actually
procured for the purpose is still to be seen beside the Town
House of Crieff. But the Murrays of Auchtertyre had a
similar ambition, and the cross of Crieff set up by them is
also to be seen a stone-cast away. The rivalry came to a
head when the Abbot of Inchaffry commissioned Murray
of Auchtertyre to poind some cattle of the Drummonds for
the payment of a debt. William, Master of Drummond,
raised his clan to avenge the insult. He -was met by the
Murrays at the little hill of Knockmary, but, reinforced
by a body of Campbells, the Drummonds put the Murrays
to flight. The latter took refuge in the little kirk of
Monzievaird, at Auchtertyre, and the Drummonds, having
failed to find them, were on the point of returning to their
own territory, when a Murray, seeing his chance, was
ill-advised enough to shoot an arrow from a window of the
kirk, and kill his man. Thereupon the Drummonds,
heaping brushwood round the little straw-thatched fane,
set it on fire, and burned to ashes the church itself and
eight score of the Murrays concealed inside. For this deed
the Master of Drummond was arrested, tried at Edinburgh,
and, notwithstanding his father's importance and influence,
78 CLAN DRUMMOND
was duly executed. His son Walter, who, on his father's
death, also became Master of Drummond, likewise died
before his grandfather, and it was his son David, great-
grandson of the first Lord, who, on the death of the latter
in 1519, succeeded as second Lord Drummond.
Meanwhile a third son of the first Lord, Sir John
Drummond of Innerpeffray, had distinguished himself
among the Scottish soldiers of fortune abroad, and had
become captain of the Scots Guards of Henry II. of
France. Several considerable families of the name are
descended from him, but most interesting perhaps is the
fact that, through the marriage of his second daughter to
the Master of Angus, he became grandfather of the Earl
of Angus of James V.'s time, and, by the marriage of that
Earl of Angus to Queen Margaret, widow of James IV.,
became ancestor of Henry, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary
Queen of Scots, and ancestor of all the later monarchs of
Britain.
To the end of his days the first Lord Drummond con-
tinued to play a highly distinguished part in Scottish
history. He was the ambassador sent to the English
Court by James IV. before the battle of Flodden, to secure
the necessary delay for his master's warlike preparations;
and, along with the Earl of Huntly and the Earl
Marischal, after the fall of James, he gave valuable
support to the party of the Regent Queen Margaret and
her husband, the Earl of Angus, against the faction
headed by the Earl of Arran. It must have been with
tragic feeling's that, four years before his own death, he
learned of the death on Flodden's fatal field of James IV.,
whom he had loyally served, and whom he had onoe
hoped to look upon as a son-in-law.
David, the second Lord Drummond, himself married a
princess of the Scottish royal house, Margaret, daughter
of Alexander, Duke of Albany, and granddaughter of
King James II. By her, however, he had no children.
By his second wife, Lilias, daughter of Lord Ruthven, he
had two sons, Patrick the elder of whom became the third
Lord Drummond, while James the second son was in 1609
created Baron Maderty, and became ancestor of the
Viscounts Strathallan, who were to succeed to the chief-
ship of the family through this link three hundred years
later.
Meanwhile the elder line of the Drummonds was to
continue a highly distinguished and romantic career.
James, the fourth Lord, after acting as ambassador for
James VI. to the Court of Spain, was in 1605 created Earl
CLAN DRUMMOND 79
of Perth. The earldom was created with remainder to
heirs male whatsoever, and its first heir was the Earl's
brother John. This chief of the Drummonds was a
Royalist officer in the short brilliant campaign of the
Marquess of Montrose. He married Lady Jean Ker,
daughter of the first Earl of Roxburghe, through which
marriage his fourth son .William became second Earl of
Roxburghe and ancestor of the three first Dukes of that
name. The third Duke of Roxburghe, with whom the line
of Drummond Dukes of Roxburghe ended, was the famous
book collector, after whom a certain well-known book
binding takes its name.
Meanwhile the Earl of Perth's eldest son James suc-
ceeded to his father's own earldom. By Lady Anne
Gordon, daughter of the Marquess of Huntly, he had two
sons, both of whom played a distinguished part on the
Jacobite side at the time of the Revolution and after. The
elder brother James, fourth Earl of Perth, was Chancellor
of Scotland, passed with his royal master to France at
the Revolution in 1689, and was created Duke of Perth
by James VII. at St. Germains in 1695. His son James,
Lord Drummond, having taken part in the Earl of Mar's
rebellion in 1715, was attainted, and therefore could not
succeed to the Earldom of Perth, which accordingly
became dormant at his father's death in the following
year ; but by the Jacobites he was styled the second Duke
of Perth, that title having been confirmed in France by
Louis XIV. in 1701, on the death of King James, at the
same time as the titles of the Dukes of Berwick, Fitz
James, Albemarle, and Melfort, all of which were Jacobite
dukedoms in the same position.
The second Duke had two sons, and it was the elder of
these, James, the titular third Duke, who was head of
the family at the time of the last Jacobite rebellion. He
was living with his mother at Drummond Castle, when it
became known that Prince Charles Edward had landed in
the West Highlands. The Government of George II.
knew his sympathies, and sent an officer, his neighbour,
Captain Murray of Auchtertyre, to effect his arrest. The
family were at dinner when Captain Murray arrived, and
the Duke insisted upon deferring business until the meal
was over. This being done, after a glass of wine the
Duke proposed that they should join the ladies, and
politely opened the door to allow his guest to pass first.
He did not, however, follow him, but, closing the door and
turning the key, escaped by another exit, and in a few
moments was galloping away to join the Prince. He was
80 CLAN DRUMMOND
wounded at Culloden, and died on the passage to France
on board the French frigate La Bellone a month later.
Something of the Jacobite ardour of the family can be
gathered from the fact that, after the cause was finally
lost, his mother caused tHe fine lake at Drummond Castle
to be formed to cover up for ever with its waters the stables
which had been polluted by the Hanoverian cavalry of
the Duke of Cumberland.
The second Duke's brother, Lord John Drummond, had
also taken an active part on the Prince's side. Sir John
Cope, who was afterwards to earn unenviable fame by his
defeat at Prestonpans, had encamped in the park of his
house of Ferntower, near Crieff, and on the way north-
ward to Culloden the Prince himself had lodged both at
Drummond Castle and at Ferntower. Lord John was
therefore attainted along with his elder brother, and the
Drummond estates were forfeited in 1746. It was for him
that the famous regiment of Royal Scots in the French
service was raised. He died without issue in 1747, and
was succeeded in turn by his uncles, John and Edward,
as fifth and sixth titular Dukes of Perth. Edward,
however, died without children in 1760, and with him
ended the whole male line of James fourth Earl of
Perth, by the attainder of whose son James, Lord
Drummond, in 1715, the Earldom of Perth had become
dormant.
This title was now revived in the person of James
Drummond, grandson by his first wife of John, second
son of the third Earl. This John Drummond had been
General of the Ordnance and principal Secretary of State
for Scotland in the time of Charles II., and had been
raised to the peerage as Viscount Melfort in 1685 and as
Earl of Melfort in 1686. Like his brother, the fourth Earl
of Perth, he had followed James VII. to France, and had
been made Duke of Melfort at the Jacobite Court in 1692,
with succession to the children of his second wife, the title
being confirmed as above mentioned by Louis XIV. in
1701. By an Act of the Scottish Parliament, the Earldom
of Melfort was attainted and forfeited in 1695, but he
continued to be known as titular Duke of Melfort. His
third son William was Abbe"-prieur of Lie"ge, and his
fourth son, a Lieutenant-General in the French Army, and
Grand Cross of St. Louis, was ancestor of three generations
of distinguished officers in the French service who bore
the title of Comte de Melfort.
The Duke's eldest son by his first wife, James
Drummond of Lundin, as already mentioned, came in as
CLAN DRUMMOND 81
chief of the Drummonds in 1760. He was served heir to
the last Earl in 1766, and thereupon assumed the title of
Earl of Perth. His son, James Drummond, eleventh Earl
of Perth, had the Drummond estates in Strathearn restored
to him by the Court of Session and Parliament in 1785.
At his death in July, 1800, however, these estates passed
to his only daughter, Lady Willoughby de Eresby, whose
grandson, the Earl of Ancaster, possesses them at the
present day.
Meanwhile John Lord Forth, eldest son by his second
wife of the first Duke of Melfort, had succeeded as second
titular Duke of Melfort, and inherited the Melfort estates
which had been granted to his father by James VII. He
married the widow of the Duke of Albemarle, who was
countess and heiress of Lussan in her own right, and he
had two sons, the younger of whom, styled Lord Louis
Drummond, was second in command of the Royal Scots
at Culloden, and became a lieutenant-general in the French
service, Grand Cross of St. Louis, and Governor of
Normandy.
It was his grandson James Louis, fourth Due de
Melfort, and Comte de Lussan, a general in the French
service, who on the death of the eleventh Earl of Perth in
1800 became twelfth Earl of Perth and Chief of the
Drummonds. He died nine months later, and was
succeeded in all these titles by his brother, Charles
Edward. In 1803 the latter began proceedings in the
Court of Session to assert his claim, but had the action
dismissed for a technical reason, and, as he was a Roman
Catholic prelate, he could not bring his claim before the
House of Lords. After his death in 1840, however, his
nephew, George Drummond, established his pedigree
before the Conseil d'fitat of France and the Tribunal de la
Seine, and his right of succession to the French honours
of Due de Melfort and Perth, Comte de Lussan, and
Baron de Valrose. He was sixth Due de Melfort and
fourteenth Earl of Perth, and by Act of Parliament in
l853, was restored to the honours of his house in this
country as Earl of Perth and Melfort, Lord Drummond of
Cargil'l and of Stobhall and Montifex, Viscount Melfort
and Forth, and Lord Drummond of Rickertown, Castle-
maine, and Galstown, Thane of Lennox, and hereditary
Steward of Strathearn.
On the death of this Earl at a great age in 1902,
however, the entire male line of Patrick, third Lord
Drummond, became extinct, and the chiefship of the
:lan, along with the family honours, was inherited by
VOL. I. F
82 CLAN DRUMMOND
Viscount Strathallan, representative of James, Lord
Maderty, second son of David, second Lord Drummond,
of the time of King James III.
The first Lord Maderty was raised to the peerage by
James VI. in 1609, and, like all others of the Drummond
family, his house remained steadfast supporters of the
Stewart cause in Scotland. His second son, Sir James
Drummond of Machany, was Colonel of the Perthshire
Foot in the Engagement to rescue Charles I. in 1648, and
Sir James's grandson, Sir John Drummond, was forfeited
in 1690 for his adherence to the cause of James VII. at
th'e Revolution. His eldest son William, however, in 1711
succeeded his distant cousin of the elder line as fourth
Viscount Strathallan.
Meanwhile David, the third Lord Maderty, who married
a sister of the Royalist Marquess of Montrose, was also a
supporter of the cause of Charles I.; and William, the
fourth baron, held a high command like his cousin in the
ill-starred Engagement of 1648. Later he fought at
Worcester in the cause of Charles II., and, though taken
prisoner, managed to escape and join the Royalist remnant
in the Highlands, till it was dispersed by Morgan in 1654.
He then joined the army of Russia, and attained the rank
of lieutenant-general, but at the Restoration returned to
this country, and was appointed a Lord of the Treasury
and General of the Forces in Scotland. As a reward of
his loyalty, he was in 1686 created Viscount Strathallan.
It was at the death of his grandson, the third Viscount,
that William Drummond of Machany succeeded to the
title as above mentioned.
Having taken arms for Prince Charles Edward, this
lord was slain at Culloden, and his name, along with that
of his eldest son, was included in the Bill of Attainder.
It is interesting here to note that, while Strathallan was
thus engaged in the Jacobite turmoils of the North, his
brother Andrew was busy founding the well-known
banking house of Drummond and Company, London,
purchased the estate of Stanmore in Middlesex, and
founded an important family there.
Meanwhile the representation of the family was con-
tinued by the son and grandson of the attainted fifth
Viscount. The grandson, who was a General and
Governor of Dunbarton Castle, in 1810 petitioned
fruitlessly for a restoration of the family honours. At i
his death in 1817, his cousin, James Drummond, son of
William, second son of the fourth Viscount, became
representative of the Strathallan family. The family
CLAN DRUMMOND 83
honours were restored to him by Act of Parliament in
1824, and a new chapter in the family history opened.
This second son, Sir James Drummond, G.C.B., was a
Lord of the Admiralty, Officer of the Legion of Honour,
and Knight of the Medjedie, while his third son,
3dmond, was Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West
Provinces of India, and his great-grandson is the eleventh
Viscount, now Earl of Perth, and Chief of the Drummonds.
f-Iis lordship succeeded his father, the tenth Viscount
Strathallan, in 1893, and his cousin, the fourteenth Earl of
Perth, and Drummond Chief, in 1902.
It is a long and strange tale, this, of a race which
several times intermarried with the Scottish royal house,
and several times ruined itself by giving that house its
oyal and strenuous support ; but there are few families or
clans which, with so long a record, have so little to stain
the honourable blazon of their arms.
CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
BADGE : Diuth fraoch (erica cinerea) fine-leaved heath.
SLOGAN : Garg'n uair dhuisgear.
PIBROCH : Failte Tighearn Shruthan, Salute to the Lord of Struan;
and Riban gorm, the Blue Ribbon.
THE MacGregors are not the only Scottish clan entitled
to the proud boast " My race is royal." Clan Mac Arthur
can produce a vast deal of presumptive evidence to support
its claim to a descent from the famous King Arthur of
early British history and tradition. And Clan Robertson
was placed in a similar position with regard to descent
from a later monarch by the researches of the historian
Skene, whose own family may or may not be a branch
itself of Clan Robertson. It was formerly the habit of
genealogists to attribute the origin of the Robertson Clan
to the blood of the MacDonalds, but according to the
authorities adduced by Skene in his History of the
Highlanders, the chiefs of the name appear rather to be
descended from Duncan, eldest son of Malcolm III.,
the great Canmore of the eleventh century. Common
tradition, again, previously bore that the name Robertson
was derived from the head of the clan in the days of King
Robert the Bruce, who, having had certain signal services
rewarded by that king with a grant of lands on the upper
waters of the Garry, adopted the king's cognomen as his
family name. It seems well established, however, that
the Gaelic name of the Clan Donnchadh, pronounced
Donnachy, and translated Duncan, was derived from an
ancestor of that name, fourth in descent from Conan, soif
of Henry, last of the ancient Celtic Earls of Atholl, while
the name MacRobert or Robertson takes its origin from
Robert Reoch of the days of James I. and James II., who
played a prominent part in the dramatic history of his
time.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century, in 1392, a
couple of years after King Robert III. had ascended the
throne of Scotland, Clan Donnchadh played its part in
one of the fierce transactions characteristic of that wild
time. The savage Earl of Buchan, better known as the
84
\
DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
Facing page 84.
\
CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON 85
Wolf of Badenoch, a son of Robert II., enraged by the
spiritual reproof of the Bishop of Moray, had made a
ferocious descent upon the lands of that prelate, sacking
and plundering his cathedral of Elgin, and giving both
cathedral and town ruthlessly to the flames. Immediately
afterwards, the Wolf's example was followed by one of his
natural sons, Duncan Stewart, who gathered a great force
af the wild mountaineers of Atholl and Badenoch, armed
only with sword and target, and, bursting through the
mountain passes into the fertile plain of Forfar, proceeded
to destroy the country, and commit every sort of ravage
and atrocity. Clan Donnchadh are recorded as among
the wild clansmen who took part in this raid, and from
their situation in the uplands of Atholl and on the borders
of Badenoch itself, it is certain that they must have been,
by force of compulsion if not by actual inclination, among
the most constant followers of the Wolf and his savage
sons. On this occasion Sir Walter Ogilvy, Sheriff of
Angus, along with Sir Patrick Gray and Sir David
Lindsay of Glenesk, rapidly gathered together the forces
of the district, and, though much fewer in numbers, trust-
ing to the temper of their armour, hastened to meet and
repel the invasion. They attacked the Highlanders on the
Water of Isla at a place called Gasklune, but were almost
immediately overwhelmed. The mountaineers rushed
upon them with the utmost ferocity, and before that rush
the knights in steel armour went down like stooks of corn
in a spate. Ogilvy and his brother, with Young of
Auchterloney, the Lairds of Cairncross, Forfar, and
Guthrie, and sixty men at arms, were slain, while Sir
Patrick Gray and Sir David Lindsay, grievously wounded,
were only carried from the field with the greatest difficulty.
The fierceness of the Highlanders on that occasion is
shown by an incident quoted by historians. Sir David
Lindsay had pierced one of them through the body with
his spear and pinned him to the earth, but in his mortal
agony the brawny cateran writhed himself up, and with a
sweep of his sword cut Lindsay through the stirrup and
steel boot to the leg bone, then instantly sank back and
expired.
Strangely enough, this fierce raid was followed by no
punishment on the part of the weak government; but
under the rule of the king's brother, Robert, Duke of
Albany, this was one of the worst governed and most
turbulent periods in Scottish history.
The next episode in which Clan Donnchadh played
an outstanding part was, curiously enough, on the side of
86 CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
law and order, though in connection with one of the most
outstanding crimes which stain the historic page. King
lames I. had been murdered in the Black Friars Monastery
at Perth in the early days of 1437, and the murderers, with
their chief, Sir Robert Graham, had escaped into the wild
mountains of Mar. The Earl of Atholl had taken a chief
part in the conspiracy, and the fact that he was the
immediate neighbour of the Chief of Clan Donnchadh
might have led that chief also to become a partner in
the treason. The chief, however, the Robert Reoch
already referred to, remained staunch in his loyalty to
the Crown, and, along with John Gorm Stewart, effected
the capture of the Master of Atholl, the chief conspirator,
Sir Patrick Graham, and others, who were immediately
afterwards executed with excruciating tortures. For
this service the Robertson chief received an addition to
his family arms of which his successors were always justly
proud.
As already mentioned, it is from this Robert Reoch —
Robert the Swarthy — who is sometimes styled Robert
Duncanson, that in later days the chiefs and members of
the clan took the name of Robertson.
Alas ! the next appearance of the Duncanson or Robert-
son chiefs in the pages of history is much less creditable.
It was seven years after the assassination of James I. The
rapacious nobles, Douglas, Crawford, Hamilton, and
others, had seized the opportunity of the minority of the
infant James II. to satisfy their own greed and lawless
desires by all kinds of rapacious deeds. The one true
patriot of the time, Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews,
ventured to withstand their rapacity, and united with the
former Chancellor Crichton in an effort to restore law and
order. Forthwith the Earls of Douglas and Crawford,
with other fierce nobles, among whom is specially
mentioned as an associate Robert Reoch, gathered
together a great force, and descending on the Bishop's
lands in Fife and Angus, burned his farms and villages,
committed all kinds of savagery, led his vassals captive,
and utterly laid the country waste. The Bishop retaliated
by laying the fierce marauders under the Church's ban of
excommunication, and among those who were thus placed
outside the pale of all Christian hope and brotherhood in
this world and the next must have been included the
Robertson chief.
There may have been those who saw in the downfall,
ten years later, of the great house of Douglas, the ring-
leader of this great national outrage, a fulfilment of the
CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON 87
good Bishop's curse, but so far as is now known, the
Robertson chiefs can have been no more than temporarily
affected by the excommunication. From their chief seat
and possession, Struan or Strowan — Gaelic Sruthan,
" Streamy " — the chiefs were known as the Struan
Robertsons, the only other Highland chiefs thus taking a
qualification to their family name being the Cluny Mac-
Phersons, whose estate of Cluny lay at no great distance
from that of the Robertsons. Struan was otherwise known
by the name of Glenerochie, and the possession was
erected into a barony in 1451. The chief was also
Dominus De Rannach or Rannoch, and possessed,
further south, the fifty-five merk land of Strath Tay.
Early in the sixteenth century, however, the Robertsons
became involved in a feud with the Stewart Earls of Atholl,
descended from the Fair Maid of Galloway, heiress of the
great house of Douglas, and John Stewart, half brother
of King James II., and son of Queen Joan, widow of
Jtmes I., by her marriage with the Black Knight of Lome.
In this feud, about the year 1510, William, the Robertson
chief, was killed, and, his successor being a child, a great
part of the Robertson lands was seized by the Earl, and
never afterwards recovered. At Struan, however, the
chiefs treasured to the last as an heirloom a mysterious
stone set in silver, which seems to have been a Scots
pebble. This was known as the Clach na Bratach, the
stone of the flag, and was believed to give the Robertsons
assurance of victory in the field.
As became their royal lineage the Robertson chiefs
remained loyal to the House of Stewart throughout the
troubles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
During the civil wars, under Donald Robertson, son of the
tenth chief, acting for his nephew, then a minor, the clan
joined the standard of the Great Marquess of Montrose, and
took part with distinguished bravery at the battle of
Inverlochy, in which the Campbells were so utterly Over-
thrown. For his loyalty Donald Robertson was rewarded
with a pension at the Restoration. Mclan, in his
Costumes of the Clans, inserts a tradition regarding one
of the Robertson warriors who particularly distinguished
himself on this occasion. This individual, who was
known from his occupation as Caird Beag, the little tinker,
had slain, it is said, nineteen of the Campbells with his
own hand. When the conflict was over, he made a fire
and with some comrades proceeded to cook a meal in an
iron pot which he had brought with him. The Marquess
happening to pass, and, being himself without any such
88 CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
means of securing a meal, asked the Caird Beag for the
use of the pot. His request was met with a downright
refusal, the clansman declaring that he had well earned
the meal he was preparing, and thought the least favour
that could be allowed him was to be permitted to refresh
himself therewith. Montrose, it is said, took the answer
in good part, exclaiming, " I wish that more little
tinkers had served His Majesty to-day as well as you
have done."
At the Revolution, again, in 1689, Alastair or
Alexander Robertson of Struan raised his followers, and
took part with Viscount Dundee, King James' general, in
the short campaign which ended with the death of that
romantic personage at the battle of Killiecrankie in Atholl,
no great distance from the Robertson country. As a con-
sequence, in the following year, Struan Robertson suffered
the forfeiture of his estates. He, however, escaped to
France, and obtained a remission in 1703, and, when the
Earl of Mar, in the autumn of 1715, raised the standard
of " James VIII. and III." at Braemar, he was joined by
the Robertson chief. The military force of the clan at that
time was reckoned to be 800 men. At Sheriffmuir, Struan
Robertson was taken prisoner, but managed to escape,
again obtained a remission in 1731, and again, in 1745,
was among the most notable Jacobites who joined the
standard of Prince Charles Edward. His clansmen were
then said to number 700, though only 200 of these resided
on the estates then actually owned by the chief. In con-
sequence of his repeated risings in the Jacobite cause,
Struan Robertson finally lost his estates, which were
annexed to the Crown in 1752. Apart from his military
escapades, this chief, Alexander, the thirteenth of his line,
remains a notable figure in the history of the Highlands.
He was no mean poet, and a published collection of his
pieces, including a curious genealogical account of his
family, has been described as " very creditable to his
literary acquirements." In private life he was marked by
a conviviality of feeling and humour which is said to have
bordered on eccentricity.
At a later day, in 1785, part of the old Struan property,
including the seat of the family, was restored to a repre-
sentative, and finally came into possession of Major-
General Duncan Robertson, descendant of Donnchadh
More of Druimachinn, third son of Robert, the fifteenth
chief. General Robertson had his residence at Dunal-
laistair in Rannoch. The oldest cadets of the family were
the Robertsons of Lude, while the Robertsons of Inches in
CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON 89
Inverness-shire traced their descent from the house of
Struan at a very early period, and from them sprang,
about 1540, the Robertsons of Ceanndace and Glencalvy
in Ross-shire. The Skenes of Skene have also been
thought to be a branch of the Robertsons. According to
this tradition Donnchadh More an Sgian — Great Duncan
of the Dirk — migrated from Atholl to Strath Dee, and
there founded this family. The fact that the head of this
house who signed the Ragman Roll in 1296 did so as
John le Skene, seems to favour the tradition of the
personal origin of the name, while the dirks in the coat
armour and the Highland supporters in antique costume
also maintain the theory. But it seems more likely that
the family of Skene took its name from the parish than
that the parish took its name from the family.
Many distinguished men of the name have added lustre
to the clan. Eben William Robertson, High Sheriff and
Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire, who died in 1874,
was the author of Scotland under her Early Kings and
other historical works of importance. James Robertson,
Professor of Hebrew at Edinburgh University in the latter
half of the eighteenth century, was the author of a well-
known Hebrew grammar. James Burton Robertson (1800-
1877) was translator of Schlegel's Philosophy of History.
Sir John Robertson, an Australian squatter, was five times
Premier of New South Wales. Patrick Robertson, who
died in 1855, was the distinguished Scottish judge whom
Sir Walter Scott nicknamed Peter o' the Painch. Thomas
William Robertson, 1829-1871, was a well-known actor
and dramatist who acquired fame as the writer of Caste,
School, Ours, and other society plays of the mid-
Victorian period. And, greatest of all, there was
William Robertson the historian (1721-1793), who, when
minister of Lady Yester's Chapel at Edinburgh in 1759,
attained enormous success with his History of Scotland.
He was appointed Principal of Edinburgh University
three years later, appointed historiographer of Scotland,
and elected Moderator of the General Assembly in 1763,
and attained a European reputation with his History of
Charles V. in 1769. His introduction to the last-named
work, which comprised an estimate of the Dark Ages, was
among the first successful attempts in this country to found
larger theories of history upon considerable accumulations
of fact. His latest work, A History of America, published
in 1777, was not less valuable than fascinating, but was
never completed owing to the outbreak of the revolutionary
war in America.
90 CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
SEPTS OF CLAN DUNCAN OR ROBERTSON
Collier Colyear
Donachie Duncan
Duncanson Dunnachie
Inches MacConachie
Macinroy MacDonachie
MacRobbie- Maclagan
MacRobert Reid
Roy Stark
Tonnochy
MAC FARLAN
racing page 90.
CLAN FARLAN
BADGE : Muilleag (Oxycoccus palustris) Cranberry bush.
SLOGAN : Loch Sloidh.
PIBROCH : Spaidsearachd Chlann Pharlain.
ONE of the loveliest regions in the West Highlands at the
present hour is the district about the heads of Loch Long
and Loch Lomond, which was for some five centuries the
patrimony of the Chiefs of the MacFarlan Clan. With
the waves of one of the most beautiful sea lochs of the
Clyde rippling far into its recesses, and the tideless waters
of the Queen of Scottish Lochs sleeping under the birch-
clad slopes on another side, while high among its
fastnesses, between the towering heights of Ben Arthur
and Ben Voirlich, shimmers in a silver lane the jewel-like
Loch Sloy, this ancient territory could not but in the
course of centuries produce a race of men instinct with the
love of the mountains and the moors, and all the chivalrous
qualities which go to make the traditional character of the
Highlanders of Scotland. This is nothing less than fact
in the case of Clan Parian, for in origin the Clan was not
Highland at all, and only became so, like a number of
others, by long residence among the mountains and the
lochs, and by intermarriage with native families of Celtic
descent.
It is true that many tellers of the story of the clan
seek to derive its origin amid the silver mists of a mythical
Celtic past. According to one account, the clan takes
descent from a hero who arrived in Ireland with the first
colonists from Spain, and whose descendants afterwards
settled in Scotland. Maclan, who mentions this tradition,
wisely concludes that it " must be classed among the
Milesian Fables." This tradition was amplified in a paper
read by the Rev. J. MacFarlane Barrow at a meeting of
the London branch of the Clan Society, and printed in
the Clan MacFarlane Journal for January, 1914. Quoting
from a MS. of the monks of Glenmassan, this writer
declared that in the veins of the MacFarlans ran " the
blood of Earls, and not Earls only, if It came to that, but
of Kings, for was not Alwyn Mor, first Earl of Lennox,
the great-grandson of Mainey Leamna, the son of Core,
9*
92 CLAN FARLAN
King of Munster, who was fifth in descent from Con of the
Hundred Battles, King of Ireland? "
To descend from these misty altitudes of vague
tradition, however, to the realm of ascertained fact. It is
recorded by the greatest of Scottish archaeologists,
Chalmers, in his Caledonia, quoting from the twelfth-
century Simeon of Durham, that the ancestor of the family
was the Saxon Arkil, son of Egfrith. This Arkil, a
Northumbrian chief who fled to Scotland to escape the
devastations of William the Conqueror, received from
Malcolm Canmore the custody of the Levanax or Lennox
district, and became first founder of the family bearing
that title. Alwyn, son of Arkil, was a frequent witness to
the charters of David I. and Malcolm IV., and was created
Earl of Lennox by the latter King. The son, another
Alwyn, of the first Earl of Lennox being a minor at his
father's death, William the Lion gave the earldom in wrard
to his brother David, Earl of Huntingdon, but the young
Earl recovered possession before the year 1199. When he
died in 1224, he left no fewer than eight sons. Of these,
Malduin, the eldest, became third Earl of Lennox, and
Gilchrist, the fourth son, obtained from the latter in 1225
a charter of the lands of Arrochar, and became ancestor of
the MacFarlans. Along with Clan Donachy, the Mac-
Farlans are said to have been the earliest of the clans to
hold their lands by feudal charter. Like other vassals of
the Earls of Lennox, the MacFarlan chiefs exercised their
rights under the stipulation that all criminals condemned
by them should be executed on the Earl's gallows at Catter.
One of the earliest traditions connected with the family
has to do with the great Norse invasion of Hakon, which
ended at the battle of Largs in 1263. Previous to that
battle, Hakon sent Olaf, King of Man, with sixty ships,
up Loch Long. The Norsemen drew their vessels across
the narrow isthmus of the MacFarlan country, between
Arrochar and Tarbet on Loch Lomond, and the spot is
pointed out, at the milestone midway, where the Laird of
Arrochar hid his family from the fierce Norse raiders.
Duncan, the second Laird of Arrochar, married Matilda,
sister of Malcolm, fifth Earl of Lennox — he who was the
friend of Wallace and Bruce, who fought at Stirling
Bridge and Bannockburn, and fell at Halidon Hill, and
there is reason to believe that the Laird of Arrochar and
his followers fought under the Earl of Lennox at Bannock-
burn. It was to the country of Duncan of Arrochar that
Bruce escaped on the memorable occasion when he crossed
the narrow waters of Loch Lomond, and recited to his men
CLAN FARLAN 98
the great romance of Fierabras; and it is pretty certain
that Duncan would be one of the little group of the Earl's
hunting party which shortly afterwards met the King,
and hospitably entertained him and his little army, in the
hour of their need, with the fruits of the chase.
The son of Duncan and Matilda was named Malcolm,
probably after his uncle the Earl; and Malcolm's son, the
fourth Laird, was named Pharlan, which has been trans-
lated Bartholomew. It is from this individual that the
family have since taken their surname of MacFarlan.
Pharlan's son Malcolm had a charter confirming him in
possession of the lands of Arrochar in 1354, and his son
Duncan, the sixth Chief, married Christian, daughter of
Sir Colin Campbell of Lochow, and died shortly before
1460. His son John married a daughter of Sir James Mure
of Rowallan, and sister of Elizabeth Mure, first wife of
King Robert II. The next Chief, Duncan, was served
heir to his father in 1441, and the next, Walter, married
a daughter of the second Lord Livingstone.
Meanwhile the original house of Lennox had suffered a
tragic catastrophe. Donald, the sixth Earl, had left only
a daughter, Margaret. She married her cousin, Walter de
Fassalane, on the Gareloch, who, as the earldom appears
to have been a female fief, became seventh Earl in right
of his wife. The son of this pair, Duncan, eighth Earl,
was again the last of his line. His daughter Isabella
became the wife of Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany,
grandson of King Robert II., and for a time Regent of
Scotland. On the return of James I. from his long
captivity in England, Duke Murdoch, his two sons,
Walter and Alexander, and his father-in-law Duncan,
Earl of Lennox, were all arrested, tried, and executed on
the Heading Hill at Stirling. Afterwards, on the death
of the Duchess Isabella in 1460, her youngest son's son,
Lord Evandale, held the earldom in liferent till his death.
Upon that event occurred the Partition of the Lennox ;
one-half of the territory went to the daughters of Earl
Duncan's second daughter, Margaret. These daughters
were married respectively to Napier of Merchiston and
Haldane of Gleneagles. The other half went to Elizabeth,
Earl Duncan's youngest daughter, married to Sir John
Stewart of Darn ley. In 1473 Darnley obtained a royal
precept declaring him heir, not only of half the lands, but
of the title of Earl of Lennox.
Meantime the heir-male of the old Earls of Lennox was
the Chief of MacFarlan, and some writers on the Clan
suppose that the latter took the field in order to assert his
94 CLAN FARLAN
claim, and suffered the loss of his territory in consequence.
But there appears to have been no break in the line of
the Chiefs. The idea that a cadet assumed the chieftaincy
appears to have arisen from a later Latin charter in which
Sir John MacFarlan was styled " Capitaneus de Clan
Pharlane." This, Skene in his Highlanders of Scotland
took to mean Captain of Clan Parian, but Dr. MacBain,
editor of the latest edition of the work, points out that
Capitaneus is really the Latin for Chief. As a matter of
fact, Andrew MacFarlan of Arrochar married a daughter
of John, first of the Stewart line of the Earls of Lennox,
and his successor, Sir John MacFarlan already alluded to,
was knighted by James IV., and fell along with the Earl
of Lennox himself at Flodden Field.
The Chiefs of MacFarlan, indeed, appear to have been
zealous supporters of the Lennox Earls. It was probably
in this character that, shortly after Flodden, the Mac-
Farlans attacked the castle of Boturich on the south shore
of Loch Lomond, which was part of the ancient property
of the earldom that had fallen to the share of Haldane
of Gleneagles. The incident is narrated in Sir David
Lindsay's well-known poem, " Squyer Meldrum." The
Laird of Gleneagles had fallen at Flodden, and the Squyer
was making love to his widow in Strathearn when news
came that her castle of Boturich was being attacked by
the wild MacFarlans. Forthwith the valiant Squyer got
his forces together, and rode to the rescue, driving off the
marauders and securing the fair lady's property.
The next Chief, Andrew the Wizard, has recently been
made the hero of a romance, The Red Fox, by a member
of the Clan. He married a daughter of the Earl of
Glencairn, and his son Duncan, who married a daughter
of Lord Ochiltree, was an active supporter of the Regent
Lennox during the childhood of Queen Mary. The Mac-
Farlans, indeed, were among the first of the Highland
clans to accept the Protestant form of worship. When
Lennox, afterwards father of Queen Mary's husband,
Darn ley, took arms in 1544 to oppose the Regent Arran
and the Catholic party, the MacFarlans, under Walter
MacFarlan of Tarbet, joined him with 140 men. These
were Cearnich or light-armed troops, provided with coats
of mail, two-handed swords, and bows and arrows, and it
is recorded that they could speak both English and Erse,
or Gaelic. Three years later, in 1547, the Chief himself
fell, with a large number of his Clan, at the battle of
Pinkie.
It was the next Chief, Andrew, who became famous by
e
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CLAN FARLAN 95
the part he played in fighting on the side of the Regent
Moray at the battle of Langside in 1568. According to
the historian Holinshed, " The valiance of ane Heiland
gentleman named MacFarlan stoode the regent's part in
great stede, for in the hottest brunte of the fighte he came
up with 200 of his friendes and countrymen, and so man-
fully gave in upon the flankes of the Queen's people, that
he was a great cause to the disordering of them. This
MacFarlane had been lately before condemned to die for
some outrage by him committed, and obtayning pardon
through the suite of the countess of Moray he recompensed
that clemencie by this piece of service now at this batayle."
MacFarlan 's neighbours, Colquhoun of Luss and the Laird
of Buchanan, also fought on the side of the Earl of Moray
at Langside. For his part, MacFarlan received from the
Regent the right to wear a crest consisting of a demi-
savage proper, holding in one hand a sheaf of arrows, and
fointing with the other to a crown, with the motto, " This
'11 defend."
This was the most turbulent period of the Clan's
history, when the frequent raids made by its members upon
the lowlands brought them an unenviable notoriety.
From the fact that these raids usually took place on clear
nights, the full moon came to be known over a considerable
part of the western lowlands as " MacFarlan's lantern."
Further, the Clan's "gathering" was significantly
" Thogail nam Bo," " lifting the cattle." The slogan of
the Clan was " Lochsloidh," " The Loch of the Host," so
named from the fact that the gathering-place of the Mac-
Farlans was upon the shores of that sheet of water. The
Laird of MacFarlan appears in the rolls of chiefs made out
in 1587-94 with a view to enforcing the law which macle
each chief accountable for the peaceful conduct of his
followers. In the latter year they appear along with the
MacGregors in the statute for the punishment of theft, reiff,
oppression, and sorning. The MacFarlans also have been
accused of a part in the assassination of Sir Humphrey
Colquhoun in his castle of Bannachra in Glenfruin in 1592,
though, according to the diary of Robert Birrell, burgess
of Edinburgh, quoted in Irving's History of Dunbarton-
shire, the assassination was the work of Colquhoun 's own
brother John.
In July, 1624, many of the Clan were tried and
convicted of theft and robbery. Some were punished,
some pardoned, and a number were removed to the
uplands of Aberdeenshire and to Strathaven in Banffshire.
Among other septs of the Clan are the Allans or Mac-
96 CLAN FARLAN
Allans, settled in Mar and Strathdon, and a large number
of others are enumerated by the Loch Lomondside
chronicler, Buchanan of Auchmar. They assumed the
names of Stewart, M'Caudy, Greisock, Macjames,
M'Innes, and others.
The origin of one of the names of septs of the Clan,
that of the Mac-an-Oighres or Macnaires of the Lennox, is
said to have been as follows. One of the chiefs left his
second wife a widow with one son, while the heir by his
first wife was vain and a little weak-minded. The younger
brother owned a beautiful grey horse, and on one occasion,
the elder, setting out for Stirling, desired to ride it in order
to make a good appearance. The stepmother, a Highland
Rebecca, refused the loan on the pretext that the steed
might not come safely back, and at last the young Laird
signed a deed agreeing to forfeit the lands of Arrochar
to his half-brother if the horse were not returned. The
stepmother thereupon bribed the groom to poison the
horse while away. This was done, and her son entered
upon possession of the estate. The Clan, however,
refused to accept him as their Chief, and some years later
the treacherous document was legally annulled and the
lands restored to the rightful heir. From this incident
certain MacFarlans were known to a recent time as Sloichd
an Eich Bhain, " descendants of the white horse," while
those who supported the heir took the name of Clann an
Oighre.
John, the son and successor of the Chief who fought at
Langside, founded an almshouse at Bruitfort on Loch
Lomondside, opposite Eilean Vow, and endowed it as a
hostelry for passing travellers. His son Walter was a
strong supporter of Charles I. in the Civil War, and in
consequence had his castle destroyed by Cromwell's men,
and was fined 3,000 merks. John, the grandson of Walter,
again, took part against the Stewarts in the Revolution of
1688, and was Colonel of a volunteer force raised in his
neighbourhood. His son and successor, Walter, was
famous as an antiquary, and among other works the
Lennox Chartulary survives only in his transcript. When
he died in 1767, his library was purchased by the Faculty
of Advocates, and is still of much use to antiquarian
students. His materials were used by Douglas in his
Peerage of Scotland, and his portrait hangs in the museum
of the Society of Antiquaries. Alexander MacFarlan, the
brother of the antiquary, was a successful merchant in
Jamaica, becoming one of the assistant judges of the
island, and a member of the Legislative Assembly. He
CLAN FARLAN 97
was an eminent mathematician and Fellow of the Royal
Society, and at his death in 1755 left an interesting
collection of instruments to Glasgow University.
William, the Chief who succeeded the antiquary Walter
in 1767, was a physician in Edinburgh. He had three
sons and three daughters. John, the eldest, who suc-
ceeded, married Katharine, daughter of James Walkinshaw
of Walkinshaw, and, among others of a family, he had
Margaret Elizabeth, who died I2th May, 1846, aged 29.
A monument on the west side of Grey Friars Church,
Edinburgh, narrates that " at the period of her decease
she was the lineal representative of the ancient and
honorable house of MacFarlan of that Ilk."
It was in 1785, in the time of the last-named Chief,
John, that the Arrochar estate was brought to a judicial
sale. It was purchased by Ferguson of Raith for
^28,000, and at a later day was acquired by Colquhoun of
Luss for ,£78,000.
The extinction of the house of the Chiefs is associated
y tradition with a curious incident. MacFarlan, it is
id, had on the waters of Loch Lomond a famous flock
swans with which the luck of the family was associated.
In the time of the last Chief, one Robert MacPharrie, who
had the second sight, declared that the days of the Chiefs
of Arrochar were numbered, and that the sign of this
ivent would be the coming of a black swan to settle among
acFarlan's swans. Strangely enough, soon afterwards,
black stranger was seen among the other birds on the
loch, remaining for three months before it disappeared,
nd it was very shortly after this that the barony passed
>ut of the hands of the MacFarlan Chiefs for ever.
Among the many distinguished later members of the
Ian was Principal Duncan M'Farlane of Glasgow Uni-
/ersity, Moderator of the Church of Scotland at the time
>f the Disruption, who had the honour of conducting
^ueen Victoria over Glasgow Cathedral and College in
842. While he was minister of Balfron, he was among
he guests invited to meet Sir Walter Scott at Ross Priory
>n Loch Lomondside. On that occasion he happened to
larrate to the novelist a folk-rhyme connected with
"liuchlyvie, then part of his parish. This ran :
11
" Baron of Buchlyvie,
May the foul fiend drive thee
And a' to pieces rive thee
For building sic a toun,
Where there's neither horse meat nor man's meat,
Nor a chair to sit doun."
VOL. I. G
98 CLAN FARLAN
The authorship of the Waverley novels was then a secret ;
a few weeks later, when Rob Roy was published, and Mr.
MacFarlane saw his verses at the head of the twenty
third chapter, he must have had a shrewd guess as to the
authorship.
The main stronghold of the Chiefs of MacFarlan was oi
course the castle of Arrochar, nothing of which now
remains but a fragment of wall. The later Arrochai
House, by which it was replaced, is still to be seen
embedded in the modern mansion of the name on the shore
of Loch Long. Besides this stronghold the Chiefs ownec
castles on the island of Inveruglas and on Eilean Vow in
Loch Lomond, fragments of both of which still remain.
The most recent chapter in the history of the Clan has
been the formation of a Clan MacFarlan Society in
Glasgow and London. The Society has Mr. Walter
MacFarlan, D.L., Glasgow, as its Honorary Vice
President, while its acting President is Mr. James
MacFarlan, representative of the Gartartan branch of the
ancient family of the Chiefs, descended from Sir John
MacFarlan, who fell at Flodden. One of the tasks which
the Society has set itself is the investigation of claims to
the chiefship, which has been obscure for more than a
century.
SEPTS OP CLAN FARUN
Allan Allanson
Bartholomew Caw
Galbraith Griesck
Gruamach Kinnieson
Lennox MacAindra
MacAllan MacCaa
MacCause MacCaw
MacCondy MacEoin
MacGaw MacGeoch
Macgreusich Macinstalker
Maclock Macjames
MacNeur MacNair
MacNiter MacNider
MacRobb MacWalter
MacWilliam Miller
Monach Robb
Parlane Thomason
Stalker Weir
iWeaver
FARQUH ARSON
Facing page 98.
:-•
CLAN FARQUHARSON
BADGE : Lus nam braoileag (vaccineum vitis idea) Red whortle-
berry.
SLOGAN : Cairn na chuimhne.
IT is said of an Earl of Angus, chief of the great house of
Douglas, in the days of James V., that at Douglas Castle,
far in the Lanark fastnesses of Douglasdale, he laughed
at the threats of Henry VIII. of England. " Little knows
my royal brother-in-law," he said, " the skirts of
Cairntable. I could keep myself here against all his
English host." With much more justification might the
Farquharson chiefs of bygone centuries have laughed at
the threats of their most powerful enemies. Upper
Deeside, which was their clan country, was so surrounded
with a rampart of the highest mountains in Scotland, and
so narrow and few were the approaches to it through the
defiles of the hills, that even the kings of Scotland them-
selves must have hesitated to attack so formidable a
fastness.
In the earliest times, as it is to-day, Upper Deeside was
a favourite resort of royalty. Just as Queen Victoria and
King Edward and King George have made their way
thither in the autumns of more recent years, for the
hunting and the fishing and other Highland delights
which the district affords in royal abundance, the early
Scottish kings are said to have resorted thither in their
time. Craig Coynoch, or Kenneth, is said to take its
name from the fact that from its summit in the ninth
century Kenneth II. was wont to watch the chase; and
not far off, at the east end of the bridge over the Cluny,
stood Kindrochit Castle, the residence of Malcolm Canmore
and later kings, from which the neighbouring village took
its name of Castletown of Braemar. Among other
raditions of royal visits at that time the great Highland
Gathering still held here each autumn is said to have been
founded by the mighty Malcolm, who offered a prize of a
purse of gold, with a full suit of Highland dress and arms,
to the man who could first reach the top of Craig Coynoch.
Here Clan Farquhar, or Finlay, has been settled from the
" ys at least of King Robert the Bruce.
99
100 CLAN FARQUHARSON
According to tradition and family history the chiefs of
the Farquharsons were lineally descended from the great
ancient Thanes of Fife. They emerge into the limelight
of history early in the fourteenth century in the person of
a redoubtable Shaw MacDuff of Rothiemurchus. It was
the time when the great house of Comyn, previously
all-powerful in many quarters of Scotland, was going down
before the might of the Bruces, their junior competitors
for the Scottish crown. The Comyn chiefs had their
headquarters in Badenoch, and Shaw MacDuff with his
followers performed prodigies of valour in driving them
out of that country. As a reward King Robert the Bruce
is said to have appointed him hereditary chamberlain of
the royal lands of Braemar, about the upper waters of the
Dee, on the other side of the Cairngorms from his original
patrimony. Here ever since, with vicissitudes more or
less dramatic and romantic, the Farquharson chiefs have
remained settled.
The son of Shaw MacDuff, founder of the family, was
a certain Fearchar who lived in the reigns of Robert II.
and III. From him the clan takes its name of Mac'earchar,
or Farquharson. He married a daughter of Patrick
MacDonachadh, ancestor of the Robertsons of Lude. His
son Donald also married a Robertson, of the family of
Calveen ; and his son again, another Fearchar, married a
daughter of Chisholm of Strathglas. This Fearchar left a
large family, several of whom settled in the Braes of Angus,
and became ancestors of respectable families there. From
Finlay Mor, the grandson of this Fearchar, the clan took
its name of Finlay, otherwise MacKinlay or Finlayson.
The clan was a member of the great Highland
confederacy of Clan Chattan, and of course played a part
in the many feuds in which that confederacy was
embroiled. Constantly in those early days the Crois-
tarich, or Fiery Cross, was sent hurrying through these
glens of the Upper Dee, and brought the Farquharson
clansmen racing hotfoot to their immemorial gathering-
place at the foot of Glen Feardar, where still stands their
famous " Cairn of Remembrance," Cairn-a-Quheen. As
late as the end of the eighteenth century, according to the
writer of the Old Statistical Account, " Were a fray or a
squabble to happen at a market or any public meeting,
such influence has this word over the minds of the country
people that the very mention of Cairn-na-cuimhne would
in a moment collect all the people in this 'country who
happened to be at said meeting to the assistance of the
person assailed."
CLAN FARQUHARSON 101
The Cairn of Remembrance is said to have had its
origin in a curious custom of the clan. Each man, as he
came to the gathering-place at the summons of his chief,
brought with him a stone, which he laid down a little way
off. On returning after the raid of battle each survivor
lifted a stone and carried it away. The stones which were
left were then counted and added to the cairn. In this
way the number of the dead was ascertained. Each
stone on the great heap, therefore, represents a Farquhar-
son who fell long* ago in some one of these forgotten
encounters.
The slogan of Cairn-a-Quheen played its part in rousing
the clan not only in many of the local clan feuds, but in
not a few of the great battles of the country. Finlay Mor,
already referred to, carried the royal standard at the battle
of Pinkie, where he fell with many of his clan in 1547.
From this fact Finlay Mor's second son Donald got the
name of Mac-an-Toisach, or " son of the leader." From
him descended the Farquharsons of Finzean, who, on the
death without male issue of James Farquharson, tenth
chief in succession from Fearchar, son of Shaw, succeeded
to the chief ship of the clan. The present Farquharsons of
Invercauld are descended from Catherine, the surviving
daughter and heiress of this house, who was known, in
Scottish fashion, as Lady Invercauld. This lady married
Captain Ross, R.N., who again, by the custom of Scotland,
took the name of the heiress, and so handed on the ancient
name of the Farquharson chiefs.
When the civil wars between Charles I. and his English
and Scottish Parliaments broke out, towards the middle of
the seventeenth century, the Farquharsons were from the
first on the side of the king. The National Covenant was
signed in 1638 as a protest against the king's attempts
to force the English Liturgy upon Scotland. To this
Covenant the Farquharsons were opposed, and Donald
Farquharson of Monaltrie raised several hundreds of the
clan and joined the Gordons who were defending the town
of Aberdeen against the Earl of Montrose, who was then
leader of the Parliament troops on the side of the Cove-
nant. Six years later Montrose, who had refused to sign
the second or Solemn League and Covenant, of 1643, and
who was now a Marquess, took up arms on the side of the
King and was joined by the Farquharsons " with a great
number of gallant men." Later, in 1651, when Montrose
had perished on the scaffold, and the young Charles II.
had come to Scotland to make a bid for the throne of his
ancestors, the Farquharsons joined that prince, and,
102 CLAN FARQUHARSON
following him to England, took part in the battle of
Worcester, where he was defeated.
Fifteen years later there occurred on Deeside an
incident which illustrates well the fierce spirit which still
survived among the gentlemen of the clan at that time.
The event is commemorated in the well-known ballad,
" The Baron o' Brackley," and the leading personages
were John Gordon of Brackley, near Ballater, and John
Farquharson of Inverey, above Braemar. According
to the Gordons Brackley had, in execution of legal
warrant, poinded some of Farquharson 's cattle. There-
upon Farquharson raised his followers, marched down to
Brackley, and proceeded to drive away both his own and
Gordon's cattle. Upon Brackley sallying forth to prevent
thist the Farquharsons fell upon him and slew him and his
brother. The ballad makes out that Brackley and his
brother were the only men in the house, and that they
sallied out as a result of the taunts of Brackley's wife, a
daughter of Sir Robert Burnet of Leys, who forthwith
engaged in a shameless liaison with Farquharson. The
ballad concludes :
O fy on you, lady ! how could ye do sae ?
You opened your yetts to the fause Inverey.
She ate wi' him, drank wi' him, welcomed him in;
She welcomed the villain that slew her baron.
She kept him till morning, syne bade him be gane,
And shawed him the road that he shouldna be ta'en.
" Through Birss and Aboyne," she said, " lyin' in a tour,
Ower the hills o1 Glentanar you'll skip in an hour."
There is grief in the kitchen, and mirth in the ha';
But the Baron o' Brackley is dead and awa'.
For this deed Inverey was prosecuted, and lay in
outlawry for many years. He is said to have been fierce,
daring, and active, and is remembered on Deeside as " the
Black Colonel."
When the revolution took place the Farquharsons
turned out, Inverey among them, and joined Viscount
Dundee. After the battle of Killiecrankie, in which
undee fell, Inverey had again to go into hiding. On
s occasion his castle was burned and he himself only
escaped m his shirt. His hiding-place, still known as the
Colonel s Cave, may be seen in a glen above the village of
The Farquharson country, however, was presently to
CLAN FARQUHARSON 103
see a still greater and more famous event. About the end
of the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, the Farquharsons
had effected an excambion with the Earl of Mar, by which
they exchanged the Haugh of Castletown, near Braemar,
for the lands of Monaltrie farther down the valley. Soon
after this transaction the Earl built on the haugh the
stronghold now known as Braemar Castle. After the
battle of Killiecrankie King William's government placed
a garrison in this stronghold to- keep the country in sub-
jection ; but the clansmen rose, besieged the place, forced
the soldiers to retire under cover of night, and, to prevent
a similar encroachment in the future, burnt the Castle.
The Earl, however, had it restored, and it was here that
in 1715, insulted by the new Hanoverian king, George I.,
he summoned the Highland chiefs for the great hunting-
party at which the rising in favour of James VII. and II.
was planned. Braemar Castle was crowded to overflowing
on that occasion, and the principal meetings were held
at the neighbouring house of the Farquharson chief,
Invercauld. It was accordingly from the dining-room at
Invercauld, still preserved in the modern mansion, that
the fiery cross was sent through the glens preparatory
to the raising of that " standard on the Braes of Mar," on
the little mount in Castletown at hand which was to mean
so much of sorrow and disaster for the clans and their
chiefs. As an immediate result in this neighbourhood,
Braemar Castle was again burned by Argyll's forces in
1716, after the battle of Sheriffmuir.
Meanwhile the Farquharsons had formed part of Mar's
army which, under Brigadier Mackintosh, was thrown
across the Forth, and marched into England as far as
Preston. A noted figure on that march was Fearchar
gaisgach Hath, " the Grey Warrior." This hero had taken
part as a lad with the Marquess of Montrose in the Jacobite
victories of 1645, and he lived to see his last remaining
son fall, and the hopes of the Jacobites extinguished, at
the battle of Culloden a hundred years later. After that
event, at the extreme age of 115, he wandered the country,
desolate and forlorn, visiting the graves of those who had
fallen in the last conflict, and known far and near by the
name above given him. On the way into England in 1715
in the attempt to defend the house of a widow from
plunder from a band of Lochaber men he received a wound,
but this did not prevent him going on with the expedition.
At Preston, when Brigadier Mackintosh and the little
Jacobite army found itself on the eve of being attacked by
Major-General Willis and the Government troops, John
104 CLAN FARQUHARSON
Farquharson of Invercauld, at the head of a hundred
chosen Highlanders, took up position at the long narrow
bridge over the Kibble, and there is little doubt he would
have made good its defence against his assailants long
enough to afford the Jacobites time to effect their
retreat. His force was, however, recalled, and the
calamitous surrender of the little Jacobite army in the town
soon followed.
The Farquharsons were again out at the rising of 1745.
They were mainly instrumental in defeating the Macleods
at Inverury, and gave an excellent account of themselves
at the battles of Falkirk and Culloden. The disastrous
issue of the rising at the latter battle brought sorrow and
ruin to many of the clan. After that event, Charles
Farquharson, the " Meikle Factor of the Cluny," was
forced to take refuge in the cave known as the Charter
Chest, in the face of Craig Cluny above Invercauld. It
was the place in which the chiefs in time of danger were
wont to conceal their most precious possessions, and so
secure was the spot that for ten months Farquharson lay
concealed in it while his house, within earshot below, was
occupied by soldiers of King George.
Evidently the Government was impressed by the need
for laying a strong hand on the Farquharson country.
About 1720 the forfeited Mar estates had been purchased
from Government by Lords Dun and Grange, the latter
being a brother of the Earl of Mar. Ten years later, how-
ever, Farquharson of Invercauld had purchased the lands
of Castletown from these owners. About 1748 he leased
Braemar Castle, with fourteen acres about it, to the
Government for ninety-nine years at a rental of ^14, and
they proceeded to repair the house, build a rampart
around it, and place a garrison within its walls. Four
years later that shrewd and intrepid pacifier of the
Highlands, General Wade, carried his great military road
through Deeside, and in the course of doing so built
across the Dee what js now known as the Old Bridge of
Invercauld.
But there were to be no more Jacobite rebellions, and
from that day to this the Farquharson country on Deeside
has remained in steady repute as a peaceful and law-
abiding district. The days were over when the laird of
Invercauld could undertake, for the payment of certain
blackmail by the city of Aberdeen, to keep three hundred
men in arms for the landward protection of the burgesses.
Successive chiefs have devoted themselves to the extensive
improvement of their estates. In the first half of the
CLAN FARQUHARSON 105
nineteenth century one of them, in the course of a long
possession, planted no fewer than sixteen million fir trees
and two million larch on his estates, besides building as
much as twenty miles of good roads throughout the
neighbourhood ; and since the coming of the Royal family
to the neighbouring estate of Balmoral in 1848 Invercauld
has seen the constant entertainment of Royalty itself.
Among other alliances, the Farquharson chiefs have twice
inter-married with the ducal house of Atholl.
While there have been many distinguished cadet
houses of the clan, it should be noted that a number
bearing the name in the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and
Moray are in reality descendants of the Comyns, having
changed their name after the final overthrow of their
house, and adopted that of Farquharson as descendants of
Fearquhard, son of Alexander, the sixth laird of Altyre.
SEPTS OF CLAN FARQDHARSON
Coutts Farquhar
Finlay Finlayson
Greusach Hardie
Hardy Lyon
MacCaig MacCardney
MacCuaig MacEarachar
MacFarquhar Machardie
MacKerracher MacKerchar
Mackinlay Reoch.
Riach
CLAN FERGUS
BADGE : Ros-greine (helium thymum mari-folium) Little sun-
flower.
ABOUT the year 1900 the present writer, in his quiet
dwelling in the neighbourhood of Loch Lomond, was
surprised one evening by a visit from a handsome young
Highlander in a grey kilt, who stated that he had walked
all the way from Keppoch in Lochaber in the hope of
finding employment. At a venture the writer suggested
that his visitor might be of the well-known race of the
MacDonalds of Keppoch; but the suggestion was met
instantly with the somewhat disconcerting reply : " Mac-
Donald I The MacDonalds have only been in Keppoch
for four hundred years; my people have been there for
many many hundred years before that." On being asked
who his people might be, the young adventurer replied
that his name was MacFhearguis. At the request to write
down the name, he had some difficulty in doing it, but he
had no difficulty whatever in describing a long line of
ancestry which stretched back through Fergus, son of
Ere, and a long line of Irish kings, to no less a person
than Scota, the daughter of Pharoah himself. The young
man explained that a large part of the district now held by
Cameron of Lochiel had originally belonged to his race,
and that the^ original Cameron, who was not a Gael but a
Briton from Dunbartonshire, who had got his name,
" Cam-shron " or " crooked nose," from damage to that
feature accruing from his warlike disposition, had origin-
ally acquired a footing in the country by fighting the
battles, and marrying a daughter, of the MacFhearguis
chief. The immediate ancestor of the young man from
Keppoch, it appeared, had fought at Culloden, and, being
exiled to America, there married an Indian princess.
The son of the pair had returned to this country and had
become the ancestor of the midnight rambler.
At present (1923) there is living in New York a
claimant to the Chiefship of the clan, who signs himself
" Clann Fhearguis of Strachur," who has been the hero
of many strange adventures, and avers that his ancestors
possessed lands on Loch Fyneside.
106
CLAN FERGUS 107
Whatever the authority for the various parts of the
statement as given by the astonishing young Highlander
above mentioned, it is certain, so far as Gaelic tradition
can go, that the first important settlement on these shores
from the north of Ireland was made in the year 503 by
three brothers, Lorn, Fergus, and Angus, sons of Ere, of
the Royal Scottish race; so Clan Fergusson can claim a
sufficiently high antiquity for its name, though it may be
difficult to prove direct descent from these early Scoto-
Irish chiefs.
This traditional origin of the clan name was turned to
amusing and useful account on one historic occasion. In
1583, after the escape of King James VI. from the Earl of
Cowrie and other lords of the English faction who had
made him prisoner at the Raid of Ruthven, he summoned
a number of hostile ministers of the Kirk to appear before
him at Dunfermline. Their reception was anything but
friendly, and the situation was only saved by the quaint
humour of one of them, Mr. David Ferguson. The King,
he averred, ought to listen to him if no other, for he had
relinquished the crown in his favour. Was not he,
Ferguson, the descendant of Fergus, the first Scottish
king, and had he not cheerfully resigned the title to his
Grace, as he was an honest man, and had possession.
By this, and more to like effect, mixed with some subtle
flatteries of the King's literary performances, he turned
James's wrath aside and secured a peaceful dismissal.
In the sixth century a holder of the name played a part
which has had far-reaching effect upon the later Christian
history of Scotland. In the early Life of St. Mungo or
Kentigern, it is related how in the year 543 that Saint,
himself a member of the royal British race, having left the
household of his early protector, St. Serf, at Culross,
came, at Carnock near Stirling, to the door of a certain
holy man, Fregus or Fergus, then on the point of death.
This holy man directed Kentigern to place his body after
death upon a car, to harness to it two unbroken bullocks,
and to take it for burial whither the bullocks might lead.
With his sacred charge Kentigern made his way to a place
then known as Cathures, now Glasgow, and at a little
bury ing-ground on the banks of the Molendinar, which
had been consecrated by St. Ninian 150 years before,
he buried the body. The spot is now covered by
Blackadder's Aisle, on the south side of Glasgow
Cathedral, which is otherwise known, from the fact just
narrated, as Fergus' Aisle. Within a few yards of it
Kentigern raised his early chapel and cell, and from that
108 CLAN FERGUS
spot spread the Christian gospel through the whole
province of the Strathclyde Britons, before he died in 603.
Meantime there had been at least one other King of
Scots of the name of Fergus, which, as a matter of fact,
is said to be derived from the Gaelic Fear, a man,
Gais, a spear, and to be cognate to the English name
Shakespeare; so the Clan Fergus might claim descent
from several royal forebears, as well as from Fergus, Lord
of Galloway, in 1165, whose wife was a daughter of
Henry I. of England. The first solid mention of the
name in more modern history, however, is in the charter
by which King Robert the Bruce conferred certain lands
in Ayrshire on " Fergusio filio Fergusii," who was
ancestor of the family of Kilkerran, of which Lieut.-
General Sir Charles Fergusson is the head at the present
hour. Families of the name, it is true, were to be found
in other parts of the country, and Thomas, Earl of Mar,
granted a charter of the lands of Auchenerne in Cromarty
to Eoghan or Ewen Fergusson, who appears in the
confirmation granted by David II. at Kildrummie Castle
in 1364 as " Egoni Filio Fergussii." There have been
Fergusons for six centuries in Balquhidder, represented
now by those of Immerveulin and of Ardandamh, the latter
in Laggan on Loch Lubnaig in Strathyre. Fergussons were
also to be found in Mar and Athol, where, in the clan map
included in Brown's History of the Highlands, the neigh-
bourhood of Dunfallandie is given as the country of
Baron Fergusson. Dunfallandie is still in possession of
this ancient family, who have owned it since the time
of King John Baliol.
It is difficult to say who claimed the chiefship in those
early centuries, although in the roll drawn up in 1587 the
Fergussons appear among the " clanis that hes capitanes,
cheiffis, and chiftanes quhome on they depend." The
most notable family of the name, however, since the days
of Bruce has undoubtedly been that of Kilkerran.
Another noted family has been that of Fergusson of
Craigdarroch in Glencairn parish, one of whom remains
famous as the victor in the tremendous drinking bout
celebrated in Robert Burns' poem, " The Whistle."
This family definitely claims descent from Fergus, the
powerful Lord of Galloway of the twelfth century, already
mentioned.
From the Fergus Fergusson of Robert the Bruce's
time, the lands of Kilkerran descended to Sir John
Fergusson, Knight, of the days of Charles I., when the
family suffered considerable reverses of fortune, and
CLAN FERGUS 109
had their lands alienated. Presently, however, John
Fergusson, son of Simon Fergusson of Auchinwin, the
youngest son of Sir John, acquired great reputation and
fortune as an advocate, advanced the funds for clearing
the family estate, and in 1703 was created a Baronet of
Nova Scotia. Sir James, the eldest son of the first
baronet, was also a noted lawyer, who became a judge of
the Court of Session and Court of Justiciary in 1749,
under the title of Lord Kilkerran. He married the only
child of Lord Maitland, son of the fifth Earl of Lauder-
dale, and grandson of the twelfth Earl of Glencairn, and
of his nine sons and five daughters, the fourth son George
also became a Lord of Session as Lord Hermand. The
eldest son, Sir Adam Fergusson, who was an LL.D.,
represented Ayrshire in Parliament for eighteen years and
the city of Edinburgh for four.
Sir Adam's nephew and successor, Sir James
Fergusson, married the second daughter of the famous Sir
David Dalrymple, Bart., Lord Hailes, who himself had
married a daughter of Sir James Fergusson, Bart., Lord
Kilkerran, and his eldest son and successor, Sir Charles,
married the second daughter of the Right Hon. David
Boyle, Lord Justice General of Scotland, and aunt of the
seventh Earl of Glasgow. The son of this pair was the
late Right Hon. Sir James Fergusson, Bart., P.C.,
K.C.M.G., of Kilkerran, who, among his many dis-
tinguished offices was Governor of Bombay, Governor of
South Australia, and of New Zealand, as well as M.P. for
Ayrshire and Under-Secretary of State for India and for
the Home Department. To the end of his life he took an
active part in public affairs, and was chairman of a
commission for the furtherance of cotton-growing in the
British colonies when he was killed in the great earthquake
at Jamaica in 1907. His wife was a daughter of the
Marquess of Dalhousie, and his son, Lieut.^General Sir
Charles Fergusson, Bart., of Kilkerran, the present head
of the family, is a very distinguished soldier.
Sir Charles joined the Grenadier Guards in 1883,
became Adjutant in 1890, and, at the outbreak of the
Sudan War in 1896, transferred to the Egyptian army, and
served with the loth Sudanese Battalion throughout the
campaign of 1896-7-8. During this campaign he was
severely wounded at Rosaires, was five times mentioned
in despatches, had the brevets of Major, Lieut.-Colonel,
and Colonel, and received the D.S.O. and the medal with
eight clasps. He commanded the 6th Sudanese Battalion
in 1899, and the garrison and district of Omdurman in
HO CLAN FERGUS
1 900 and closed his record in Egypt as Adjutant-General
from' 1901 to 1903. Afterwards he commanded the 3rd
Battalion of the Grenadier Guards from 1904 till 1907,
was Brigadier-General on the General Staff of the Irish
Command from 1907 till 1908, and Inspector of Infantry
from 1909 till 1913. He is a Justice of the Peace, a Deputy
Lieutenant of Ayrshire, and a Commander of the Bath.
In 1901 he married Lady Alice Mary Boyle, second
daughter of the Earl of Glasgow, by whom he has three
sons and one daughter. At the outbreak of the great
European War Sir Charles was appointed to the command
of the Second Division of the British Expeditionary Force
in France, receiving the rank of Lieut.-General, and he was
throughout actively and gallantly engaged in the arduous
work of the campaign at the Front.
Among other celebrated people of the name of
Fergusson a few out of a long list may be noted here.
One of the most famous was David Ferguson, the
Reformer, already referred to, who died in 1598, who was
first a glover, then a minister at Dunfermline, who
preached before the Regent against the taking away of
church property, was Moderator of the General Assembly
twice, and one of a deputation which administered one of
the numerous admonishments to King James VI . He com-
piled a collection of Scottish proverbs, and wrote a curious
critical analysis of the Song of Solomon. There was
Robert Ferguson, " the Plotter," who died in 1714. He
took an ardent part in the controversy about the legitimacy
of the Duke of Monmouth, was one of the chief contrivers
of the Rye House Plot, was chaplain to Monmouth 's army,
and accompanied William of Orange in his landing in 1688.
He afterwards became a Jacobite, and was committed to
Newgate, but never brought to trial. More famous still
was Robert Fergusson, the Scottish poet and exemplar of
Burns, who died in 1774, and for whom Burns erected a
tombstone in Canongate Churchyard. There was also
Adam Fergusson, the Professor of Philosophy at Edin-
burgh, in whose house, the Sciennes at Edinburgh, Sir
Walter Scott as a boy had his memorable meeting with
Robert Burns. At the death of Robert Burns' friend, the
Earl of Glencairn, in 1796, Professor Ferguson made a
claim to the earldom before the House of Lords as lineal
descendant of and heir general to Alexander, created Earl
of Glencairn in 1488, and to Alexander, Earl of Glencairn,
who died in 1670, through the latter 's eldest daughter, Sir
Adam's great-grandmother, Lady Margaret Cunningham,
wife of John, Earl of Lauderdale, and mother of James,
CLAN FERGUS 111
Lord Maitland, above referred to. But the Lords decided
" although Sir Adam Ferguson has shown himself to be
heir general to Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, who died in
1670, he hath not made out a right of such heir to the
dignity of the Earl of Glencairn."
Last who may be noted was Sir Adam Ferguson, son
of the above and long a familiar friend of Sir Walter Scott,
who as a Captain of the loist Regiment read the Sixth
Canto of The Lady of the Lake to his company in the
lines of Torres Vedras, afterwards became keeper of the
Regalia of Scotland, and was knighted in 1822. Regard-
ing him Lockhart in his Life of Scott recounts an amusing
incident in which the poet Crabbe was concerned. He
quotes the Life of Crabbe, in which that poet describes
how on this occasion he met " Lord Errol, and the
MacLeod, and the Fraser, and the Gordon, and the
Ferguson," and conversed at dinner with Lady Glengarry.
In a note regarding the allusion to Fergusson, Lockhart
says :
" Sir Walter's friend, the Captain of Huntly Burn, did
not, as far as I remember, sport the Highland dress on
this occasion, but no doubt his singing of certain Jacobite
songs, etc., contributed to make Crabbe set him down for
a chief of a clan. Sir Adam, however, is a Highlander."
SEPTS OP CLAN FERGUS
Fergus Ferries
MacAdie MacFergus
MacKerras MacKersey
CL'AN FORBES
BADGE : Bealaidh (spartiuin scorparium) common broom.
SLOGAN : Lonach.
PIBROCH : Cath Glen Eurainn.
As in the case of many other of the Highland clans, there
are traditions which trace back the genealogy of the
Forbeses to the blood of the early Celtic kings of Scotland,
and through them to a still more remote ancestry in the
royal race of Ireland. These traditions, in so far as they
concern the Clan Forbes, are detailed at length in a
brochure by the Honourable Mrs. Forbes of Brux,
published at Aberdeen in 1911, and entitled Who was
Kenneth L, King of Scots? This pamphlet claims a
descent for the chiefs of the clan from Kenneth II. — he
who finally defeated the Picts at Cambuskenneth in 838,
and united the kingdoms of Picts and Scots — and behind
him, through a more or less hazy ancestry of individuals
whose relationships are difficult to make out, such as
Forbhasach, son of a Lord of Ossory, slain in 755,
Forbasa, Abbot of Rath Aedha in the sixth century, and
the like, to the misty chiefs of the early Irish Hy Nial.
That these traditions have been held by the Clan for
hundreds of years is shown by the facts that the Chiefs,
down to the battle of Duplin in 1332, were known by the
name O'Choncar, that more than one later chief, like
James O'Chonacar the I7th Baron, at the end of the
eighteenth century, bore the name of those early Celtic
ancestors, that a son of the second Lord Forbes in 1476
had his lands on Deeside erected into the barony of
O'Neil, and that a Master of Forbes as long ago as 1632,
in the report of an interview, made an allusion to
relationship, believed to date from early Celtic times,
between his own race and the race of the MacKays, of
which Lord Reay was the head. The descriptive name
Forbhasach, " bold forehead," appears to have been
common in those times; but as patronymics did not then
exist, the name cannot be said to have been that of a
family, or succession of holders from father to son.
Whatever may be the truth about the remotest
ancestry of the clan, and whatever might be the relation-
ship of early individuals bearing names more or less
resembling that of Forbes, it seems clear that the
cognomen at present borne by the chiefs and others of the
race was derived from the lands of Forbes in Aberdeen-
112
FORBES
Facing page 112.
CLAN FORBES 113
shire. In the brochure already alluded to it is claimed
that these lands have been possessed uninterruptedly by the
Forbes chiefs in right of their descent from the early
Scottish kings, who personally owned them. In 1736 the
fifteenth baron wrote : ' ' We know of no person by tradi-
tion, nor the history of any one, who possessed the lands
of Forbes before ourselves." At any rate, in the days of
William the Lion the lands were in possession of the
family, the first of the name upon record being John de
Forbes. From Fergus de Forbes, the son of this
individual, all the Scottish families of the name are
believed to have descended. The lands were formally
granted by charter to the head of the house by King
Alexander II. about the middle of the thirteenth century,
and towards the close of that century the owner played a
part in a striking episode which brought his race into
prominence on the page of Scottish history.
This owner was Alexander, eldest son of Fergus de
Forbes, above mentioned. As governor of the royal castle
of Urquhart on Loch Ness, he made a spirited defence i»f
that stronghold against the army of Edward I. x>f England
in 1303. The Scottish garrison was hard pressed, and
presently it became evident that it would be starved into
surrender. The governor did not regard his own fate,
but he had with him in the castle his wife, then about to
become a mother, and for her safety and the preservation
of the succession of his family he was most anxious that a
means should be found of conveying her through the
English lines. One day the gate of the castle opened, and
the English saw a beggar woman driven forth. The tale
she told was that she had happened to be inside the castle
when the siege began, but that now, as provisions were
running short, the garrison were no longer willing to feed
a useless mouth, and had driven her out. Believing this
tale, the English allowed her to pass, and the governor
had the satisfaction of seeing her make her way to safety.
Shortly afterwards the castle fell, and Forbes with his
entire garrison was put to the sword. His wife, how-
ever, shortly afterwards gave birth to a son, and the
succession of the Forbes family was preserved. The
gallant governor who thus fell is said to have been other-
wise known as O'Chonochar, and according to tradition
he, or a predecessor, w£s buried under a rock in Glen
Urquhart, known to this day as Innis O'Connochar. The
name is said to have been used by the chiefs of Clan
Forbes down to a recent period.
To the posthumous son of the brave governor of
VOL. I. H
114 CLAN FORBES
Urquhart Castle, King Robert the Bruce granted certai
lands adjoining those already owned by him in Aberdeen-
shire. This head of the house, who was also named
Alexander, was with the host under the Regent Earl of
Mar which was surprised by Edward Baliol at Duplin in
1332, and he was among those who fell in that disastrous
battle. His son, Sir John Forbes, was a distinguished
personage in the reigns of Robert II. and Robert III.
His wife was a daughter of Kennedy of Dunure, ancestor
of the noble house of Ailsa, and, of their four sons, the
second, Sir William, became ancestor of the Lords
Pitsligo; the third, Sir John, of the Forbeses of Culloden,
Watertown and Foveran; and the youngest, Alexander,
of the Forbeses of Brux.
The eldest son, Sir Alexander de Forbes, when King
James I. was a prisoner in England, led a following of a
hundred horse and forty spearmen to France, where he
fought against the English under Henry V. at the battle
of Beauge in 1421 and is immortalised by the poet
Ariosto. Later in life — some time between 1436 and 1442
— he was created a Lord of Parliament by James II. His
wife was a daughter of George, Earl of Angus, and a
granddaughter of King Robert III., and his eldest son,
the second baron, married a daughter of William, first
Earl Marischal, and granddaughter of the first Lord
Hamilton and the Princess Mary, daughter of King
James II. Of this second baron's three sons, Duncan of
Corsindie became ancestor of the Forbeses of Pitsligo and
other families, while Patrick of Corse, who was armour-
bearer to James III., became ancestor of the Forbeses of
Craigievar and the Forbes Earls of Granard in Ireland.
According to Macfarlane's Genealogical History, the
Forbes Chiefs had the whole ruling and guiding of the
King's affairs in the district between Forfar and Caithness
shires down to the year 1500. Alexander, the fourth
baron, in 1488, after the death of James III. at Sauchie-
burn, where Forbes himself had taken part, displayed the
bloody shirt of the murdered king on a spear, and,
marching through the north country, summoned all loyal
subjects to rise and execute vengeance. He succeeded in
getting together a large force, but on learning of the defeat
of the Earl of Lennox in the south, he laid down his arms,
and was pardoned and received into favour by the youthful
James IV.
John, the sixth Lord Forbes, was three times married.
His first wife was Catherine, daughter of John Stewart,
Earl of Athol, the half-brother of James II., her mother
CLAN FORBES 115
being the famous Fair Maid of Galloway, heiress of the
great race of the Black Douglases, who had first been
successively married to her cousin William, Earl of
Douglas, stabbed by James II. in Stirling Castle, and
afterwards to his brother James, last of the Douglas Earls,
who was overthrown by King James II. and ended his
days as a monk in the Abbey of Lindores. By his first
wife Lord Forbes had one surviving daughter, who married
the Laird of Grant. By his second wife, a daughter of
the Laird of Lundin, he had two sons, John and William.
Of these, the elder, John, was that Master of Forbes whose
dark and turbulent career furnishes one of the most
outstanding episodes in the reign of James V.
Already, in 1527, a fierce feud between the families of
Forbes and Lesley had, with its ramifications through the
districts of Mar, Garioch, and Aberdeen, plunged the
country in blood. Among others of the lawless acts of
the Master of Forbes was his murder of Seton of Meldrum,
and he was known to have lent his services to further the
schemes of Henry VIII. against Scotland. The Master
had married a sister of the Earl of Angus, the ambitious
chief of the Douglases, who had married the widow of
James IV., and for long exercised royal power during the
boyhood of James V. On the midnight escape of James
from Falkland, to assume royal power, and banish the
Douglases from the kingdom, the Master of Forbes took
a vigorous part in the schemes by which their friends
endeavoured to secure their return. He appears in
particular to have been the moving spirit who induced the
Scottish lords at Wark to mutiny against the Regent
Albany, and in 1536 he was accused by the Earl of Huntly
of a design to shoot King James himself as he passed
through Aberdeen. Upon these charges he and his father,
Lord Forbes, were both imprisoned. The father was
acquitted amid much popular rejoicing, but the Master
was condemned and executed, declaring himself innocent
of treason, but acknowledging that he ought to die for
the murder of the Laird of Meldrum. The trial and
execution of the Master of Forbes took place on i4th July,
1538, and two days later the beautiful Janet Douglas,
Lady Glamis, sister of the banished Earl of Angus, was
condemned and burnt to death for conspiring to poison
the king. An account of these mysterious events is to
be found in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland. That
the king believed the Forbes family, apart from the Master
of Forbes, to have no part in the crime is shown by the
fact that Lord Forbes was speedily set at liberty, that no
116 CLAN FORBES
attempt was made to forfeit the family estates, and that
William, the Master's younger brother, was appointed to
an office in the royal household.
In the reign of James V.'s daughter, Mary Stewart, the
feud between the Forbeses and their neighbours the
Gordons came to a height. The Gordons were the great
upholders of the Roman Catholic Church in the north,
while the Forbeses were steady supporters of the
Reformation. In the transactions of the time Adam
Gordon of Auchendoun, the Earl of Huntly's brother,
played a conspicuous part. After Gordon had defeated
the Forbeses in one hard-fought battle, the Regent Earl
of Mar gave the Master of Forbes some horsemen and five
companies of foot to support an attempt at dislodging the
Gordons, who had taken possession of Aberdeen. Forbes,
however, fell into an ambuscade laid for him by Gordon,
a certain Captain Carr with a party of hagbutters doing
great execution among his ranks, along with a company
of bowmen from Sutherlandshire in the service of
Auchendoun. On this occasion the Master of Forbes was
defeated and taken prisoner.
It is worth noting here, as a clue to some of the ill-
feeling between the Forbeses and the Gordons, that the
Master of Forbes here mentioned, and who afterwards
became eighth Lord, had married a daughter of the Earl
of Huntly, and had divorced her, as the notorious Earl of
Bothwell had divorced her sister, Lady Jean Gordon, in
order to marry Queen Mary.
Another episode of the strife between the two clans
was even more dramatic than that above mentioned.
Part of it is related in one of the best known Scottish
ballads, " Edom o' Gordon." It was in 1571, when Adam
Gordon was Acting Deputy-Lieutenant for Queen Mary's
party in the north, and in the late autumn following the
incident above narrated. The Gordons summoned the
House of Tavoy or Corgarf, belonging to John Forbes, to
yield. Forbes' lady, a daughter of Campbell of Cawdor,
refused to do this without her husband's instructions, and
thereupon the Gordons fired the house, and she and her
family and attendants, twenty-seven persons, were burnt
within. The ballad relates in true folk-song fashion the
lady's proud colloquy from her towerhead with the enemv,
and its cruel answer :
Out, then, spake the Lady Margaret,
As she stood on the stair;
The fire was at her gowd garters,
The lowe was at her hair.
CLAN FORBES 117
But the climax is reached when the lady's daughter,
suffocating in the smoke, begs to be rolled in a pair of
sheets, and dropped over the wall. The fair burden is
received on the point of Gordon's spear.
Oh, bonnie, bonnie, was her mouth,
And cherry were her cheeks,
And clear, clear was her yellow hair,
Whereon the red bluid dreeps.
Then wi' his spear he turned her ower —
Oh, gin her face was wan !
He said, " You are the first that e'er
I wished alive again ! ' '
He turned her ower and ower again —
Oh, gin her skin was white!
He said, " I might ha'e spared thy life,
To ha'e been some man's delight ! "
The burning of Corgarf, thus chronicled, had a sequel
which affords a striking illustration of the manners of
feudal times. The incident is related in Picken's Tradi-
tional Stories of Old Families, from which it may be
quoted: "Subsequent to this tragical affair," says the
writer, " a meeting for reconciliation took place between
a select number of the heads of the two houses in Lord
Forbes' castle of Druminor. The difference being1 at
length made up, both parties sat down to a feast. The
eating being ended, the parties were at their drink.
' Now,' said Huntly to his neighbour chief, ' as this
business has been satisfactorily settled, tell me, if it had
not been so, what it was your intention to have done.'
' There would have been bloody work,' said Forbes,
' bloody work, and we would have had the best of it. I
will tell you. See, we are mixed one and one, Forbeses
and Gordons ; I had only to give a sign by the stroking
down of my beard, and every Forbes was to have drawn
the skean from under his left arm, and stabbed to the heart
his right-hand man.' As he spoke, Forbes suited the
sign to the word, and stroked down his flowing beard. In
a moment a score of skeans were out, flashing in the light
of the pine torches held behind the guests. In another
moment they were buried in as many hearts; for the
Forbeses, whose eyes constantly watched their chief,
mistaking this involuntary motion for the agreed sign of
death, struck their weapons into the bodies of the
unsuspecting Gordons. The chiefs looked at each other
in silent consternation. At length Forbes said, ' This is
118 CLAN FORBES
a sad tragedy we little expected ; but what is done cannot
be undone, and the blood that now flows on the floor
of Druminor will just help to slocken the auld fire of
Corgarf.' "
After the murder of the Bonnie Earl of Moray at
Dunnibristle in 1592, Lord Forbes, who was Moray's close
friend and the feudal enemy of his murderer, the Earl of
Huntly, marched with the slain man's bloody shirt on
a spear's head through his territories, and incited his
followers to revenge.
John, son of the Lord Forbes who played a part in so
many tragic incidents, and of Lady Margaret Gordon,
above referred to, was much revered for his pious life. He
adhered to the Roman Catholic Church, and his fame is
remembered to the present day under the name he took of
" Father Archangel." His escape from Scotland to
Antwerp in the disguise of a shepherd's boy was one of
the romances of that time. He took the habit of a
Capuchin friar at Tournay in 1593, and is said to have
converted 300 Scottish soldiers to Catholicism at Dixmude.
In 1606, only six weeks after succeeding to the peerage,
he died of the plague at Ghent while visiting those attacked
by that disease. A Latin life of him by Faustinus Cranius
was translated into English, French, and Italian.
The tenth Lord Forbes was one of the Scottish nobles
and soldiers of fortune who in the first half of the seven-
teenth century won fame under the banners of Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden. In those wars he attained the rank
of Lieutenant General, and after his return to Scotland, he
was sent to Ireland in 1643 as one of the commanders
entrusted with the suppression of the rebellion there
against Charles I.
The twelfth baron was a Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Horse Guards in the latter years of the seventeenth century,
and was made a member of the Privy Council by King
William III. His elder son, the thirteenth baron, had his
own troubles in the events of his time, since his wife, a
daughter of William Dale of Covent Garden, lost no less
a sum than ^20,000 through rash investment in the great
South Sea Bubble. The sixteenth baron was appointed
Deputy-Governor of Fort William in 1764, and the post
was evidently not altogether a sinecure, since he died there
forty years later.
The seventeenth baron, already mentioned as bearing
the name James O'Choncar, distinguished himself as
>lonel of the 2ist Fusiliers. He served with the Cold-
stream Guards in Flanders under the Duke of York, and,
CLAN FORBES 119
at the Helder under Sir Ralph Abercromby in 1799,
attained the rank of General in the Napoleonic wars, and
was made a Knight of the Royal Sicilian Order of St.
Januarius. He was a representative peer for Scotland,
acted as High Commissioner to the General Assembly of
the Church of Scotland from 1825 till 1830, and was created
a baronet of Nova Scotia. His son, again, Walter, the
eighteenth baron, commanded a company of the Coldstream
Guards at Waterloo, and took part in the terrific struggle
at the Chateau of Hougomont.
The nineteenth Lord, who succeeded in 1868, was
premier baron of Scotland, a representative peer, and a
Deputy-Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire.
Among the cadet branches of the family it is uncertain
whether that of Pitsligo or that of Craigievar was the
elder, there being a doubt as to which of their ancestors,
Duncan and Patrick respectively, was second son and
third son of the second Baron Forbes.
Pitsligo is said to have been acquired by marriage with
a daughter of Fraser of Philorth in the middle of the
sixteenth century ; but a hundred years earlier, in 1448,
John Forbes of Pitsligo was among those slain in the battle
between the Lindsays and the Ogilvies over the justiciar-
ship of the Abbey of Arbroath. The fourth and last Baron
Forbes of Pitsligo was a noted Jacobite, who played a
conspicuous part in the Earl of Mar's rising in 1715. After
living abroad for five years he was allowed to return, but
having raised a regiment for Prince Charles Edward at the
Jacobite rebellion of 1745, he was attainted, and lived in
hiding till his death in 1762.
Meanwhile the second son of the union with the heiress
of Pitsligo had founded another family. His eldest son,
William Forbes, married Margaret, daughter of the ninth
Earl of Angus, and their eldest son, another William, was
created a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1626. The fourth
baronet married a daughter of the Earl of Kintore, and
John, the eldest son of this union, married Mary Forbes,
daughter of the third Lord Forbes of Pitsligo, through
whom, on the decease of John, Master of Pitsligo in 1781,
her descendants became nearest heirs and representatives
of that noble family. The sixth baronet, Sir William
Forbes, was the famous Edinburgh banker of the
eighteenth century. His second son was a Judge of the
Court of Session under the title of Lord Medwyn, and
the eighth baronet, who married a daughter of the sixth
Marquess of Lothian, assumed the additional surname and
arms of Hepburn, as heir of entail to the barony of Inver-
120 CLAN FORBES
may, and as heir at law to the estate of Balmanno, on the
death of Alexander Hepburn Murray Belshes.
The Forbeses of Newe are also descended from Duncan,
son of the second Lord Forbes. Their immediate ancestor
was William Forbes of Dauch and Newe, younger brother
of Sir John Forbes, created Lord Forbes of Pitsligo in
1633. The baronetcy dates from 1823, its first holder
having been a merchant at Bombay. Ten years later, Sir
Charles Forbes was served nearest heir-male general to
Alexander, third Lord Pitsligo, and in the same year the
Pitsligo arms and supporters were granted him by the
Lord Lyon.
The Forbeses of Craigievar, again, are descended from
Patrick of Corse, armour-bearer to James III., who for
his services had bestowed upon him the barony of O'Neill.
The second baron of O'Neill and laird of Corse was known
significantly as Trail the Axe. The fifth took an active
part in the settlement of the Church after the Reformation,
and was for seventeen years Bishop of Aberdeen ; and his
son, Dr. John Forbes of Corse, was Professor of Theology
in King's College, Aberdeen, and author of many valuable
works. The present line is descended from the brother of
the Bishop, William Forbes of Craigievar, which, by the
way, means the " Rock of Mar." It was his son who, in
1630, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. He com-
manded a troop of horse on the Parliament side in the
Civil Wars, and was active otherwise in the public business
of his time. His son, again, known as " the Red Sir
John," did much to repair the fortunes of his house, which
had suffered seriously during the Civil Wars, and he sat
repeatedly in the Scottish Parliament. Later heads of
the house also distinguished themselves, and Sir William,
the eighth baronet, inherited the Sempill peerage as repre-
sentative of the Hon. Sarah Sempill, eldest daughter of
John, twelfth Lord Sempill, and wife of Sir William, the
fifth baronet of Craigievar. The next representative of
the house, his son, Sir John Forbes Sempill, eighteenth
Baron Sempill, served through the Suclan and South
African campaigns.
Still another notable family of the clan has been that
of the Earls of Granard in Ireland, who are descended
from Sir Arthur, sixth son of Trail the Axe, above referred
to. Sir Arthur settled in Ireland in 1620, and obtained
extensive territorial possessions from the crown in the
county of Longford. These were erected into the Manor
of Castle Forbes, and Sir Archibald was made a baronet
of Nova Scotia in 1628. Four years later, as Lieutenant-
CLAN FORBES 121
Colonel, he accompanied his regiment to take part in the
wars of Gustavus Adolphus, and was killed in a duel at
Hamburg. His eldest son distinguished himself under the
Marquess of Montrose in the Civil Wars, and after the
Restoration was made a Privy Councillor, Marshal of the
Army in Ireland, and one of the Lords Justices, before he
was raised to the peerage in 1673. A year later he raised
the eighteenth Royal Irish Regiment, and was made Earl
of Granard. The second Earl was imprisoned by William
the Third in the Tower, served in Turenne, and took part
at the battle of Saspach and the siege of Buda. The third
Earl, distinguished in public service, naval, military, and
political, died senior admiral of the British Navy. The
sixth Earl, who opposed the Union with Great Britain,
was made a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Granard
of Castle Donington in Leicestershire, a mansion which
figured conspicuously in the public eye as the place of
internment of German officer prisoners during the war
of 1914. And the present Earl of Granard, eighth of his
line, has highly distinguished himself in public service as
a Lord in Waiting, Assistant Postmaster-General, and
Master of the Horse, as well as special Ambassador to
announce the accession of King George V. at the courts
of Lisbon, Madrid, the Hague, Brussels, Copenhagen,
Stockholm, and Christiania.
Among other distinguished bearers of the name of
Forbes, the most famous was Duncan Forbes of Culloden,
President of the Court of Session, whose exertions at the
time of the last Jacobite rebellion did much to prevent
a general rising of the Highland clans, and to preserve
the throne for George II. Duncan Forbes was descended,
through the family of Tolquhon in Aberdeenshire, from
Sir John, third son of Sir John de Forbes, who died in
1405. He purchased Culloden from the laird of Macintosh
in 1726, and, according to Marshal Wade, could count
upon a Highland following of 200 men.
Altogether, from first to last, there is perhaps no
Highland family which can boast so many branches
highly distinguished in so many spheres of public life as
that which has sprung from the stem of this ancient
Aberdeenshire house.
SEPTS OF CLAN FORBES
Bannerman
Fordyce
Miclue
CLAN FRASER
BADGE : lubhar (taxus baccata) the yew-tree.
SLOGAN : Caisteal Downie; and more anciently Morfhaich.
PIBROCH : Spaidseareachd Mhic Shimi, and Cumhadh Mhic Shimi.
THE race of the Erasers, as purely Highland in character
and Celtic in instinct to-day as any clan in the North,
must be regarded as undoubtedly of Norman descent.
The roll of Battle Abbey contains the name of the
ancestor who came over wkh the Conqueror, and no long
period of time appears to have elapsed before the earliest
of the Scottish Frisells or Frasers obtained a settlement
north of the Border. It is true that Maclan in his Clans
of the Scottish Highlands suggests that the name Frisell,
now Fraser, may be a corruption of the Gaelic Friosal,
for which he suggests as a derivation Frith, a forest, the
" th " being silent, and siol, *' a race," which would make
the word Frissel, to mean " the race of the forest "; and
he cites the traditions in the lower parts of Inverness-shire,
which, he says, detail forays by the inhabitants of the
Fraser country as having been carried out by cearnich na
coille, or " warriors from the woods." But this theory
appears to be demolished by the fact that the earliest
Frissels known in Scottish history belonged, not to the
Highlands, but to East Lothian and the upper valley of
the Tweed. Their removal into the North of Scotland,
like that of the Gordons, appears likely to have been a
comparatively late affair.
According to the family tradition, the earliest settle-
ment of the Frisells was in East Lothian and the earliest
whose name is found in charters is believed to be Gilbert
de Fraser who lived in the time of Alexander I., in the
early years of the twelfth century. Very soon the family
diverged into Tweeddale, and there, on High Tweedsmuir,
near the sources of the river, Oliver Fraser, Chief of the
name, built the stronghold called after him, Oliver Castle,
which continued for several generations to be the chief
feudal seat of the family. The Fraser territory included
Biggar on the west, with its castle of Boghall, and
probably stretched thence to the other Fraser stronghold
of Neidpath near Peebles, on the east.
122
ERASER
icing page 122.
CLAN ERASER 123
The first of the name who played a great part in
Scottish history appears to have been William Fraser,
Bishop of St. Andrews and Primate of Scotland. After
the death of Alexander III. Fraser was appointed one of
the six guardians and regents of the realm. In strong
contrast to Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, who was
the other churchman appointed regent, Fraser favoured
the interests of Baliol and Edward I. of England. He was
indeed the first to solicit the interference of the English
king in Scottish affairs. In striking contrast appears the
character of the next of the race to figure in national
history. Edward I. had defeated Wallace at the battle of
Falkirk in 1298, but, incensed that the Scots continued to
resist his usurpation, he appointed John Segrave governor
of Scotland, and early in 1303 sent him into the country
at the head of twenty thousand men. With his army in
three separate camps, Segrave lay near Roslin, when on
the morning of 24th February a boy rushed in, shouting
that the Scots were upon them. The news was true. Sir
John Comyn, the Scottish governor, and Sir Simon
Fraser had gathered a force of eight thousand horse in the
Fraser country at Biggar, and by a night march fell upon
the English unaware. They rapidly defeated the first
English army under Segrave himself, and were dividing
the booty, when they were attacked by the second army
under Ralph the Cofferer. This they also defeated, and
again thought their work done, when they were assailed by
the third army under Sir Robert Neville. Though worn
out by the long night march and the two first fights, they
attacked and totally defeated this third array, and were
accordingly able to make the proud boast that in one day
they had defeated three English armies.
Sir Simon was one of the truest and bravest of the
Scottish patriots. After the death of Wallace, and the
defeat of Bruce at Methuen and Dalrigh, he made a last
effort for the freedom of Scotland with a small force at
Kirkencliff, near Stirling, but was defeated and taken
prisoner. Carried to London in heavy irons, he was led
through the city crowned with periwinkle, and after a
similar trial to that of Wallace, suffered the same horrible
death as a traitor.
Meantime Sir Simon's brother, Sir Alexander Fraser,
had been one of the first to join Bruce, and had been among
the prisoners captured at Methuen, but had been ransomed
and soon again joined the king.
After the death of Sir Simon Fraser his estates were
divided. Through the marriage of one of his 4aughters,
124 CLAN FRASER
Boghall and Biggar passed to the Chief of the Flemings,
while, by the marriage of his other daughter, Neidpath
passed to the Hays, afterwards Earls of Yester and
Marquesses of Tweeddale. But the race of the Erasers
continued to play a striking part in Scottish history. At
the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 the fourth division of the
Scottish army had among its chief captains James and
Simon Eraser, who were then " veteran leaders of approved
valour." They were both killed in the battle.
Meanwhile the family had made its way into the North.
According to Anderson's History of the Lovat Family,
Sir Andrew Eraser appears about 1290 as a Highland
proprietor, the first of his name to do so. The uncle of
Sir Simon of Biggar, Sir Andrew, married the daughter of
the Earl of Orkney and Caithness, and through her mother,
daughter and heiress of Graham of Lovat, came into
possession of the territory of that name. The family
settled in the district known as the Aird, between Loch
Ness and the Beauly Firth in Inverness-shire. From
Simon, the eldest son and successor of Sir Andrew Eraser,
the succeeding chiefs took their Celtic patronymic of
MacShimi, or MacKemmie, as the " sons of Simon," and
the race seems to have rapidly increased and grown in
power, for before long the Eraser chief could count upon
the support of " a good number of barons of his name
in Inverness- and Aberdeenshires." In 1416, in an
indenture, Hugh Frisoll, or Eraser, is styled " Lord of
the Aird and Lovat," and fifteen years later he was
summoned as a baron to attend the Scottish Parliament.
By his marriage with Janet, sister and co-heir of William
Fenton of that Ilk, he materially increased the wealth and
power of his family, and his son and grandson, the second
and third Lords Lovat, did the same by marrying
respectively a sister of David Wemyss of that Ilk, and a
daughter of the Earl of Glamis.
It was yet another Hugh Eraser, the fifth Lord Lovat,
shown to have sat in the Scottish Parliament of I4th
March, 1540, who took part in one of the most famous
conflicts of the Scottish clans, that known variously as the
battle of Lochlochy and as Blar-na-leine, the Battle of the
Shirts, in 1544.
Queen Mary was an infant two years old when, through
a kindly act of the Eraser Chief, a large part of the West
Highlands suddenly burst into flame. The trouble began
with the deposition and execution, by his own clan, of
LJUgal, Chief of Clan Ranald, for certain acts of cruelty
and oppression. Alastair, his uncle, who was declared
CLAN ERASER 125
chief, died in 1530, whereupon the latter's natural son,
Iain Muidartach, who had been legitimatised, managed to
secure the estates and the chief ship. Meanwhile Dugal's
eldest son, Ranald, had been fostered by his uncle, Lord
Lovat, and on his becoming a man, Lovat determined to
put him into possession of his father's lands and honours.
Ranald, however, was ungenerous and unpopular with
his clansmen, who scornfully nicknamed him Gallda, the
Stranger or Lowlander. Joined by the Camerons, they
chased him out of their country, raided some of the Fraser
territory, and captured the strong castle of Urquhart on
Loch Ness. In turn they were driven back by the
Queen's lieutenant, the Earl of Huntly, who, with the
Laird of Grant, had come to the aid of Lovat. Thinking
they had dispersed the MacDonalds, Huntly and Grant
marched homeward up Glen Spean, while Lovat, with
Ranald Gallda and some four hundred Fraser clansmen,
set out by the side of Loch Lochy towards the Aird.
They had not gone far when the MacDonalds suddenly
appeared descending the hills on front and flank, in seven
columns, with pipes playing and banners flying. Immedi-
ately a terrific battle began, without quarter or mercy on
either side. It was a hot day in July, and, in order
to fight the better, both sides stripped off their clothes,
from which circumstance the fight takes its well-known
name. Traditions of the warlike deeds performed are to
be found in Gregory's and other histories of the High-
lands, and so fatal was the issue that of the Frasers it is
said only one sorely wounded gentleman and four
followers remained alive, while on the MacDonald side
there were only eight survivors. Lord Lovat himself and
his prot£g£, Ranald Gallda, were among the slairr.
For the next two hundred years the Chiefs of the
Frasers played their own part in the affairs of the
Highlands, and the race again came into the limelight of
general Scottish history in the person of the notorious
Simon, thirteenth Lord Lovat, of the time of " the
forty-five."
Upon the death of Hugh Fraser, eleventh Lord Lovat,
in 1696, Amelia, the eldest of his four daughters, co-heirs,
proceeded to assume the title. She had, however,
reckoned without her second cousin, Simon Fraser.
Simon was the eldest surviving son of Thomas Fraser of
Beaufort, third son of the ninth lord, and this Thomas,
being still alive, and the nearest heir-male, was now, as a
matter of fact, the twelfth Lord Lovat. Simon Fraser
had no intention to allow the title and chiefship to go
126 CLAN ERASER
past him, but the method he took to secure them was that
of an African savage. His father had been a follower of
Claverhouse, and had intrigued in the cause of the exiled
Stewarts, and his chances of a peaceful succession to the
peerage were not a little doubtful. Simon, however,
proceeded to make the matter certain in his own way, so
far, at any rate, as he was himself concerned. First of
all he made an attempt to carry off his second cousin,
Amelia, but the attempt did not succeed. Then, gather-
ing a band of desperadoes, he broke into the bed-chamber
of Amelia's mother, the dowager Lady Lovat, and
brutally effected a forced marriage with her, drowning
her shrieks with the uproar of a band of pipers, and
carrying her off to an island where she was entirely in
his power. The lady was a daughter of John, first
Marquess of Athol, and, her family taking action regarding
the outrage, Simon Fraser was condemned to death. He
and his father then took to the woods, and lived fo
several years as outlaws. In course of time he inducei
the Duke of Argyll to procure a pardon for his politica
offences from King William ; but, being summoned befor
the High Court of Justiciary for his outrage against Lady
Lovat, he did not appear, and was accordingly outlawed
Plunging thereat into Jacobite intrigues, he went to
France. There, by his own account, he was imprisonec
for three years in the castle of Angouleme, but other
evidence shows that he was thrown into the Bastille, am
only obtained release by taking holy orders. Ten years
later, when the Jacobite rising of 1715 took place, he
appeared in London, and secured favour by offering his
services to the Government against the Stewarts; then
proceeding to Scotland, raised a band of freebooters, witl
whom he made such a show of loyalty to the House o:
Hanover that he obtained a free pardon. Meanwhile, on
the plea that his marriage with Lady Lovat had been
" merely a joke," he made a marriage with Janet,
daughter of the Laird of Grant, by whom he had two sons
and two daughters, and in 1733 he had his title to the
barony confirmed by the House of Lords. In that year,
having become a widower, he proceeded to kidnap
Pnmose Campbell, sister of John, fourth Duke of
Argyll, and on securing pardon for this new offence, he
had the audacity to ask for a dukedom. This being
refused by George II., Simon Fraser again turned his
coat and began to look to the House of Stewart as a more
likely furtherer of his ambition. Upon the landing of
Prince Charles Edward, he held out the hope that he
CLAN ERASER 127
would join the rising if given the strawberry leaves, and
it is said that the patent was actually made out. At the
same time he endeavoured to impress on the Government
that he was acting loyally in the Hanoverian interest.
He had the misfortune of many such schemers, however,
to fall between two stools. The Jacobite dukedom never
reached him, he failed to give effective help to the prince
at the right time, and after the battle of Culloden his
treason was so evident, that he was one of those upon
whom the Government's chief displeasure and punishment
fell. After skulking for a time on an island in Loch
Morar and elsewhere, he was at last captured in a hollow
tree, where his bloated body was wedged so tightly
that he could not have extricated himself. At St. Albans,
on the way to London, he was sketched by Hogarth, a
mass of fat and cunning. At the trial in Westminster
Hall he defended himself with great skill, but the " old
fox " had come to the end of his career. Eighty years of
.age, he was convicted and sent to the Tower, and was
beheaded on gth April, 1747, being the last to die by the
axe at that historic stronghold. A popular rhyme puts his
case in a nutshell :
Lord Lovat's fate indifferent we view,
True to no king, to no relation true.
The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave.
Strange to say, the son of this " wicked Lord Lovat "
became one of the most distinguished soldiers of his time.
As leader of the clan at Culloden, where the Erasers joined
,at the last moment, he behaved with great valour, and on
the Highlanders being forced to give way, he marched off
his clan with banners flying and pipes playing, in the face
of the enemy. Afterwards, on the plea that he had been
forced by his father to support the Jacobites, he obtained
pardon, and in 1757 raised 1,800 Erasers to take part in
the war against the French. At Louisberg and Quebec
he and his clansmen played a most distinguished part,
and in the attack on the latter city, in the difficult landing
and the battle afterwards on the Plains of Abraham, the
Erasers covered themselves with glory, and vitally
contributed to the famous victory which gave Canada
into our hands. General Simon Eraser also took part in
the defence of Portugal in 1762, and may be held to have
redeemed by his valour and loyalty the good name of his
house. On his death childless in 1782, he was succeeded
in the chiefship by his half-brother Colonel Archibald
128 CLAN FRASER
Campbell Fraser, whose mother was Primrose Campbell
above referred to. He was British Consul at Tripoli and
Algiers from 1768 till 1774, M.P. for Inverness-shire
from 1782 till 1796, and author of a work, Patriots of
the Family of Fraser, Frisell, Simson, or Yiiz Simon in
1795. He set up a monument in Kirkhill kirkyard, on
which his services were duly detailed. His son, who
died before him in 1803, was a barrister, commanded the
Fraser Fencibles in Ireland at the crucial period of 1798,
and was M.P. for Inverness-shire from 1796 till 1802.
Upon the death of Archibald Campbell Fraser without
surviving issue in 1815, the line of the wicked Lord Lovat
came to an end. There have been several claims to the
title, but the chiefship, it has been decided, passed to
Thomas Fraser of Lovat and Strichen, great-great
grandson of Thomas Fraser of Knockie and Strichen
second son of the sixth Lord Lovat and Janet, daughter
of Campbell of Cawdor. Thomas Fraser of Knockie am
Strichen had married Amelia, only surviving child o
Tames, Lord Doune, eldest son of Alexander, Earl o
Moray, and exactly 227 years from the time when he
acquired the estate of Strichen, his descendant became
representative of the main line. Thomas Alexander
Fraser of Lovat and Strichen was the twenty-first chief
He was created Baron Lovat of Lovat in the peerage o
the United Kingdom in 1837, and established his righ
to the fifteenth century Scottish barony of Lovat in the
House of Lords twenty years later. He married the
eldest daughter of the Marquess of Stafford, and was Lor<
Lieutenant and Sheriff Principal of Inverness-shire. His
son, the twenty-second chief, was also Lord Lieutenant, am
the present chief, who succeeded in 1887, is his second son
The present Lord Lovat is the sixteenth Baron of the
old Scottish creation, and has brilliantly upheld the
warlike and patriotic traditions of his family. He began
his military career as a lieutenant in the First Life Guards
and continued service as a major in the ist Voluntee
Battalion Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. At the
outbreak of the South African War he raised from among
his own clansmen and other Highlanders a mounted force
known as the Lovat Scouts, which from the experience of its
members as ghillies, stalkers, and the like, in the High
lands, and mounted on serviceable active ponies, provec
most useful during the campaign, and afforded a suggestior
which has been taken up since in the organisation o.
the British Army. Lord Lovat was himself mentions
in despatches during the campaign, and was mad
CLAN FRASER 129
successively D.S.O., C.B., C.V.O. and K.C.V.O. On
his return from South Africa he raised two yeomanry
regiments to form part of a Highland Mounted Brigade,
of which he became Lieutenant-Colonel. When the
war of 1914 broke out, he at once went upon active service
again, raised further units for his brigade, and proceeded
to the front as its commander. In time of peace his
Lordship took a most distinguished part in furthering the
most vital interests of the Highlands, and in the matter of
the war his name and fame were an inspiration to every
Highlander in the field.
The family seat, Beaufort Castle, occupying a beautiful
situation near the river and town of Beauly, is a modern
mansion built on the site of an earlier one of the same
name razed to the ground after the battle of Culloden in
1746, and this in turn superseded the still more ancient
Castle of Lovat near the same spot.
The chief cadet line of the family is that of Fraser of
Philorth, which now holds the ancient Scottish barony of
Saltoun. Sir Alexander Fraser of this branch, who lived
in the time of James V. and Queen Mary, having inherited
from his grandfather the baronial burgh of Philorth,
founded on it the town of Fraserburgh, and established
there in 1597 a short-lived university. He represented
Aberdeenshire in the Scottish Parliament in 1596, and was
knighted by King James VI. In 1669 Alexander
Abernethy, ninth Lord Saltoun, having died without issue,
this peerage devolved upon his heir of line, a later Sir
Alexander Fraser of Philorth, whose mother had been
eldest daughter of the seventh lord, and who thus became
tenth baron. He was a zealous Royalist, and commanded
a regiment on the side of Charles II. at the battle of
Worcester in 1651. His grandson, William Fraser,
eleventh Lord Saltoun, married a daughter of Archbishop
Sharp, murdered by the Covenanters on Magus Muir. He
wrote a fragment of family history, and planned to bring
the succession to the Chiefship and the Barony of Lovat
into his family by marrying his eldest son to Amelia
Fraser, eldest daughter and heiress of Hugh, eleventh Lord
Lovat. For this he was seized and imprisoned on Eilean
Aigas in the Beauly by Simon Fraser, the " wicked lord "
already referred to, who at that time was anxious to marry
Amelia himself. In the sequel the Master of Saltoun
married a daughter of the first Earl of Aberdeen. The
sixteenth Lord Saltoun, who married a natural daughter
of the famous Lord Chancellor Thurlow, served with
distinction in the Napoleonic wars. At Quatre Bras he
VOL. i. I
13o CLAN ERASER
commanded the light companies of the 2nd Brigade of
Guards, and at Waterloo he held the chief point of French
attack in the battle, the garden and orchard of Hougomont,
and led the final charge against the French Old Guard.
Among his other honours he was K.C.B., K.T., a military
Knight of Russia and of Austria, and a Scottish
Representative Peer. His grand-nephew, the present Lord
Saltoun, eighteenth Baron, is also a Scottish Representa-
tive Peer. He has been Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd
Battalion Grenadier Guards, and major of the 3rd Battalion
Gordon Highlanders. It may be noted that Saltoun
estate itself, in Haddingtonshire, has never belonged to the
Fraser line of peers, having been sold by Alexander, ninth
Lord Saltoun, in 1643, to Sir Andrew Fletcher, grandfather
of the famous Scottish patriot, the opponent of Lauderdale,
the Duke of York, and the Union with England.
There are also, among other branches, the Frasers of
Ledeclune and Morar, represented at present by Sir Keith
Alexander Fraser, Bart. The family is descended from
Alexander, second son of Hugh Fraser, an early Lord
Lovat. A daughter of the house married the fifteenth
chief, and the baronetcy dates from 1806.
Other notable members of the clan have been the
covenanting divine James Fraser, known as Fraser of Brae,
who suffered imprisonment on the Bass Rock, in Blackness
Castle, and in Newgate; James Baillie Fraser, the famous
Asiatic explorer and writer, whose rides from Semlin to
Constantinople and from Stamboul to Teheran were
notable events in their time; James Stewart Fraser,
General and Commissioner in India in the early years of
last century ; Patrick Fraser, a Lord of Session and author
of various legal works; John Fraser, the botanist, who
introduced pines, oaks, azaleas, and other plants from
America, and Tartarian cherries from Russia, and went to
America as Collector to the Tsar Paul in 1779; Louis
Fraser, Curator to the Zoological Society, naturalist to the
Niger expedition in 1841, and author of Zoologia Typica-,
and Sir William Fraser, LL.D., the famous Scottish
genealogist and antiquary, writer of learned accounts oi
many Scottish families, and founder of the Chair of
Ancient History and Palaeography at Edinburgh Univer
sity. From first to last the Frasers have made a mark in
history as romantic, varied, and useful as that of any
family in the country.
CLAN FRASER i81
SBPTS OP CLAN ERASER
Frissell Frizel,
MacGruer Macimmey
MacKim MacShimes
MacSimon MacSymon
Sim Simon
Simpson Syme
Tweedic
CLAN GORDON
BADGE : Eidhean na craige (hedera helix) rock ivy.
SLOGAN : A Gordon ! a Gordon !
PIBROCH : Failte, and Spaidsearachd nan Gordonich.
THOUGH the origin of the name and family of Gordon
has often been debated, the weight of evidence favours the
assumption that the ancestor of the house came from the
manor of Gourdon in Normandy about the time of the
Norman Conquest, and that he or a descendant was one of
the feudal settlers encouraged to come to Scotland in the
days of Malcolm Canmore and his sons. Early in the
twelfth century, at any rate, according to Chalmers'
Caledonia, the ancestor of the race is found settled on the
lands of Gordon in Berwickshire. A tradition runs_that
the first of the name to cross the Tweed was a valiant
knight, a favourite of Malcolm Canmore, who, having
killed a wild boar which seriously distressed that district
of the Border, obtained from the King a grant of these
lands, to which he gave his own surname, and, settling
there, assumed the boar's head for his armorial bearing in
commemoration of his exploit. For three centuries at
least the heads of the house were most closely associated
with Border history, and when at last they removed their
chief seat to the North of Scotland they left scions of the
race, like the Gordons of Lochinvar, afterwards Viscounts
Kenmure, and Gordon of Earlston, to carry on the tradi-
tions of the name in the south. In the Berwickshire
parish, a little north of the village of West Gordon, a
rising ground ^now covered with plantation, but still called
the Castles," and showing the remains of fortification,
is pointed out as the early seat of the family. The original
Huntly was a village now vanished in the western border
of Gordon parish, where two farms are still known
respectively as Huntly and Huntly-wood.
vln 1270 Adam de Gordon took part in the Crusade
organised by Louis XI. of France. From this fact the
jm family are said to derive their crest and motto.
In 1309 Sir Adam de Gordon, in return for giving up
un temporal claims, obtained from the monks of Kelso
132
GORDON
'adng page 132.
CLAN GORDON 138
leave to possess a private chapel with its oblations here.
It was this Sir Adam de Gordon who along with Sir
Edward Mabuisson was sent to Rome by King Robert the
Bruce in 1320 as the bearer of the famous letter to the Pope
drawn up at Arbroath by the Scottish barons, to declare the
real temper and rights of the Scottish people as against the
claims of the English Edwards. And it was this same Sir
Adam who, in recognition of his services, appears to have
received from Bruce a grant of the lands of Strathbogie
in Aberdeenshire, which had previously belonged to that
king's enemies. Strathbogie was one of the five ancient
lordships or thanages which comprised Aberdeenshire, and
covered an area of a hundred and twenty square miles.
Sir Adam fell at the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333. In
1357 Sir Adam's grandson, Sir John de Gordon, obtained
a confirmation from David II. of King Robert's grant of
these lands, and he or his successor obtained another
confirmation from Robert II. in 1376.
The chief interests of the family, however, were still on
the Border, and in the following year the Earl of March,
with whom was Sir John de Gordon, having burned the
town of Roxburgh, and the English Borderers having
retaliated on Sir John de Gordon's lands, the latter crossed
the Border, carried off a great booty, and, when intercepted
by a force twice the strength of his own, in a desperate
affray overthrew Sir John de Lilburn at Carham. In the
following year, after another fierce conflict, Sir John had a
chief hand in defeating and taking captive Sir Thomas de
Musgrave, the English Governor of Berwick. Finally, he
was one of the knights who took part with the young Earl
of Douglas in the famous encounter with the forces of the
Earl of Northumberland on the moonlit field of Otterbourne
in 1388, and there he fell.
In that famous encounter, as the well-known ballad
puts it,
The Gordons good, in English blood
They steeped their hose and shoon.
Fourteen years later, in the days of King Robert III.,
took place the great battle of Homildon Hill, in which
again the leaders on the two sides were an Earl of Douglas
and Hotspur, son of the Earl of Northumberland. On this
occasion occurred a chivalric episode. Sir John Swinton,
seeing the carnage made in the close Scottish ranks by the
English bowmen, couched his lance and was about to
charge. At that moment Sir Adam de Gordon, who had
long been at deadly feud with him, knelt at his feet, begged
184 CLAN GORDON
his forgiveness, and asked the honour of being knighted bv
so brave a leader. Swinton gave him the accolade and
tenderly embraced him, then the two, at the head of their
followers, dashed upon the English. Alas 1 their bravery
was not followed up; they both fell, and the battle was
Sir Adam, who was the son of Sir John de Gordon
mentioned above, was the last male of his line. By his
wife, daughter of Sir William de Keith, Marischal of
Scotland, he had an only daughter, Elizabeth. This lady
married Alexander, second son of William Seton of Seton,
and from that day to this the heads of the great house of
Gordon have been Setons in the male line, these Setons
being, like the Gordons themselves, descended from one
of the Norman settlers planted in Scotland by King
David I.
In right of his wife, Alexander Seton was known as
Lord of Gordon and Huntly, and his son, another
Alexander, assuming the name and arms of Gordon, and
marrying a daughter of Lord Crichton, Chancellor of
Scotland, was created Earl of Huntly by James II. in 1449
with limitation to his heirs male by Lord Crichton 's
daughter. The Earl had been twice previously married,
first to a granddaughter of the first Earl Marischal, by
whom he acquired a great estate, but had no children, and
secondly to the heiress of Sir John Hay of Tullibody, by
whom he had a son, Sir Alexander Seton, who inherited
his mother's estates and was ancestor of the Setons of
Touch.
The Earl had in 1424 been one of the hostages sent to
England as security for the ransom of James I., and his
son George, the second Earl, married the Princess Joanna,
daughter of that King, from whom all the later heads of
the house have the royal Stewart blood in their veins.
Earl George's second' son, Adam, Lord of Aboyne,
marrying Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, became Earl of
Sutherland in her right, and ancestor of the great Suther-
land family, while the third son, Sir William Gordon,
became ancestor of the Gordons of Gight, and so of George
Gordon, Lord Byron, in the nineteenth century. The
eldest son, Alexander, the third Earl of Huntly, was he
who before the battle of Sauchieburn, counselled James III.
to come to terms with his rebellious nobles, but, his advice
being overruled, retired like the Earl Marischal and other
nobles to his estate. Huntly nevertheless took part at
Sauchieburn. Two years later Huntly was appointed
Lieutenant of James IV. north of the Water of Esk, and
CLAN GORDON 185
from this time the Gordon family figures as perhaps the
most powerful in the north of Scotland.
Shortly afterwards occurred the curious episode of
Perkin Warbeck's visit to Scotland. This " Prince of
England," as he was called, was received with royal
honours by James IV. as one of the sons of Edward IV.,
slain by Richard III. in the Tower. The Scottish King
addressed him as cousin, gave tournaments and other
courtly entertainments in his honour, and bestowed upon
him the hand of the Earl of Huntly's daughter, the
beautiful Catherine Gordon, who was through her mother
daughter of James I. of the blood royal of Scotland. It is
of interest in this connection to note that when Perkin
Warbeck was finally sent out of the kingdom, setting sail
from Ayr in the ship of Robert Barton, he was accom-
panied by his beautiful wife, who remained faithfully by
his side throughout all his future reverses of fortune.
After his execution in 1498 she was kindly treated by
Henry VII., who placed her in charge of his queen, and
gave her a pension. She was known by the English
populace as the White Rose of Scotland, and afterwards
married Sir Matthew Craddock, ancestor of the Earls of
Pembroke. Her tomb is still to be seen in the old church
at Swansea.
When insurrection broke out in the Western Isles in
1505, the Earl of Huntly was sent to quell the northern
area, and he stormed and took Torquil MacLeod's strong-
hold of Stornoway. Lastly, on Flodden's fatal field,
Huntly, along with the Earl of Home, led the Scottish
vanguard, and opened the battle with the furious charge
which routed the English van, the only part of the action
in which the Scots were successful. Sir William, the
Earl's younger brother, fell in the battle, but Lord Huntly
himself survived till 1528. His eldest son John, Lord
Gordon, who died in 1517, married Margaret, natural
daughter of James IV., and it was his elder son, George,
who succeeded as fourth Earl.
This nobleman took an active part in the affairs of
Scotland in the times of King James V., Mary of Lorraine,
and Mary Queen of Scots. He was made Chancellor of
the kingdom in 1546. He also, two years later, obtained
a grant of the earldom of Moray, but the acquisition led to
an act which has left a stain upon his name, and it
ultimately for a time brought about the complete eclipse
of his house. Among other things, the new earldom made
him feudal superior of the Clan Mackintosh lands in
Nairnshire, in addition to those he already controlled in
186 CLAN GORDON
Badenoch. Huntly appears to have endeavoured to secure
eomplete control of his feudal vassal by getting him
to sign a bond of manrent, but the chief, William
Mackintosh, refused to bind himself. The Earl then
proceeded to deprive Mackintosh of his office of Deputy
Lieutenant. Presently a certain Lachlan Malcolmson,
who owed Mackintosh a grudge, saw in the difference
between him and the Earl a means of possible profit and
revenge. He accordingly brought a charge against the
chief of conspiring to take Huntly's life. Mackintosh
was accordingly seized, and thrown into a dungeon at
Bog of Gight. Thence Huntly carried him to Aberdeen,
tried him there in a court packed with his own followers,
and had him condemned to forfeiture and execution. The
provost, it is said, convened the town in arms to prevent
the execution, and accordingly Huntly carried his victim
to his own castle of Strathbogie. There, it is said, he left
him to his lady to deal with, and that lady — Elizabeth,
daughter of Robert, Lord Keith — promptly had him
beheaded. This was in 1550. Sir Walter Scott and
Skene in his Highlanders of Scotland give a highly
picturesque account of this incident, but the fact as above
stated appears to be authentic. Nemesis came to Huntly
later. He was looked upon as the main champion of the
Catholic faith. In this character his interests were opposed
to those of the Queen's brother, James, and when Mary
conferred upon the latter the northern earldoms, first of
Mar and then of Moray, Huntly felt compelled to support
his own interest by force of arms. His grandfather had
been made hereditary keeper of the castle of Inverness in
1495, and when Queen Mary went thither in the course of
the royal progress which she undertook to establish her
brother in his earldom, she found the gates of the castle
closed in her face by Huntly's castelan. In the upshot the
castle was taken and the castelan hanged, and Mary,
marching eastward through Huntly's country, encountered
him with her army on the slopes of Corrichie on Deeside.
The struggle ended disastrously for the Gordons. The
Earl, a stout and full-blooded man, having been taken
prisoner, was set upon a horse before his captor, when he
was suddenly seized with apoplexy and fell to the ground
His body, produced in Parliament in a mean sack-
cloth dress, was condemned to forfeiture of titles and estates.
son, Sir John Gordon, was butchered by a bungling
xecutioner at the Cross of Aberdeen, while Mary was
mpelled by her brother to look on at the horrid end of
man whom, it is said, she had once dearly loved. At
CLAN GORDON 137
the same time George, the eldest surviving son, sentenced
in the barbarous fashion of the time to be hanged, drawn,
and quartered, only escaped by the special clemency of the
Queen, who, however, appointed him Chancellor in 1565,
and reversed the sentence of forfeiture against his house.
This fifth Earl married Ann Hamilton, daughter of the
Regent Earl of Arran, herself a descendant of King
James II., and so established still another connection with
the royal house of Stewart.
Amid the feuds between the houses of the north at that
time a striking incident stands out, and forms the subject
of a well-known ballad, " Edom o' Gordon." Details of
this incident and its sequel will be found in the account
of Clan Forbes on a previous page.
The rivalry, however, between the houses of Huntly
and Moray was not over, and at the hands of George
Gordon, the sixth Earl, it culminated in a deed which has
left a vivid record in ballad and tradition. The Regent
Moray's only daughter had married James Stewart, a
descendant of that Murdoch, Duke of Albany, executed
by James I. on Stirling heading hill, and in right of his
wife Stewart had assumed the title of Earl of Moray.
From his handsome appearance he is remembered as the
Bonnie Earl o' Moray. Popular tradition, enshrined in
the ballad, asserts that James VI. was jealous of his
Queen's admiration for the Bonnie Earl, and that Huntly
was afforded facilities for accomplishing his family
revenge. The subject was dealt with by the late Andrew
Lang in an interesting paper. The upshot was that
while Moray was staying at his house of Donibristle near
Culross on the Forth, it was suddenly assailed by Huntly.
Moray escaped, but as he fled along the shore his long
yellow hair caught the light of the burning mansion, and
betrayed him. After he was struck down Huntly reached
the spot, and being called upon by his followers to take
an active part in the slaughter, slashed Moray across the
face; whereupon the latter is said to have exclaimed
bitterly, " You have spoilt a better face than your own."
Colour is lent to the popular tradition of the King's
concern in the act by the circumstance that, eight years
later, in 1599, Huntly was created Marquess, as well as
Earl of Enzie, Viscount Inverness, and baron of seven
other lordships.
In 1594 Huntly had been accused, along with the
Earls of Angus and Errol, of conspiring with the King
of Spain for the restoration of the Roman Catholic
religion in Scotland. The young Earl of Argyll was
138 CLAN GORDON
sent against him with four or five thousand men, but on
his way towards Strathbogie, on the confines of Glenlivet,
he was confronted by Huntly and Errol at the head of a
force of fifteen hundred. Argyll took up a good position
on the side of Benrinnes, but he proved an indifferent
leader, and in the end himself carried the tidings of his
defeat to the king at Dundee. As a result the King
himself was forced by the Protestant nobles to lead an
army into the north, where he demolished Errol's castle
of Slaines, and Huntly's stronghold of Strathbogie, said
to have been the finest house of the time in Scotland. It
was not long, however, as we have seen, till Huntly
received the ample amends of the King. Perhaps one of
the reasons for the favour shown him was the fact that he
married Lady Henrietta Stewart, eldest daughter of the
King's favourite, Esme, Duke of Lennox.
His son George, second Marquess, was a staunch
adherent of Charles I. In early life he commanded a
company of gens d'armes in France, and in 1632, during
his father's lifetime, was created Viscount Aboyne. He
refused to subscribe the National Covenant in 1638, and in
consequence was driven from Strathbogie by the Marquess
of Montrose, then a general on the Covenant side. For
two days at that time the Marquess's second son, James,
held the Bridge of Dee at Aberdeen against Montrose,
but in the end the latter succeeded by stratagem. He sent
his cavalry up the river bank, as if to cross at a higher
point, and the Gordons on their side rode up to oppose
the crossing. While doing so they were cut to pieces by
the cannon of Montrose, and as a result the bridge was
lost and Aberdeen captured by the Covenanters. A
Covenanting ballad, " Bonnie John Seton," which
celebrates the occasion, refers curiously to the effect of the
unaccustomed cannon fire upon the Highlanders of that
time.
The Highland men are clever men
At handling sword and gun;
But yet are they too naked men
To bear the cannon's rung.
For the cannon's roar in a summer night
Is like thunder in the air;
not a man in Highland dress
Can face the cannon's rair.
Huntly was captured and carried to Edinburgh, and
at, wards outlawed and excommunicated, but, along with
se, who by this time had taken the King's side, he
CLAN GORDON 189
stormed Aberdeen in 1645. After the defeat of Montrose
at Philiphaugh in that year he raised forces for Charles I.
in the north, but was captured by Colonel Menzies at
Delnabo, and though his wife was a sister of the Marquess
of Argyll, then head of the Scottish Government, he was
beheaded at Edinburgh by the Covenanters in 1649.
The Marquess's eldest son, George, Lord Gordon, had
joined Montrose and fallen at the battle of Alford in 1645,
and his second son, James, who had inherited his father's
Viscounty of Aboyne, and had also joined Montrose in the
interest of Charles I., had fled to France and died of grief
after the execution of the king in 1649. It was therefore
the third son, Lewis, who was restored to the family
honours and estate, as third Marquess, by Charles II.,
during that young monarch's short reign in Scotland
in 1651.
It was his only son George who succeeded as fourth
Marquess in 1653, when he was no more than ten years old.
After seeing military service with the French under
Turenne at the battle of Strasbourg and afterwards
under the Prince of Orange, he was, at the recommen-
dation of Claverhouse, created Duke of Gordon in 1684.
James VII. appointed him a Privy Councillor and captain
of Edinburgh Castle, but at the Revolution in 1689 he
surrendered the stronghold to the Convention of Estates.
His wife, a daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, retired to a
convent in Flanders, whereupon the Duke brought an
action against her for restitution of conjugal rights. It
was she who in 1711 sent the Faculty of Advocates a medal
bearing the head of the Chevalier, with the motto
" Reddite."
Naturally her son, Alexander, the second Duke, was
an ardent Jacobite. During the Rising of 1715, while
Marquess of Huntly, he joined the forces of the Earl of
Mar at Perth with two thousand three hundred men, and
he was present at the battle of Sheriffmuir ; but he received
pardon and succeeded to the Dukedom in 1716. He was
on intimate terms with the King of Prussia and with
Cosmo di Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after whom
he named his eldest son, and he received presents from
Pope Clement XII.
It was his eldest son, Cosmo George, who was head
of the house during the critical period of the Jacobite
Rebellion of 1745. While the Duke himself did not
join the rising under Prince Charles Edward, his brother,
Lord Lewis Gordon, did, and led a strong contingent of
the clansmen in the campaign which ended at Culloden.
140 CLAN GORDON
The .mportance
is commemorated m the J«J™rf the Duke's brothers,
Scotland. But he probably remains most famous as the
™of the well-Lawn song " Cauld [KaiMn Aber-
deen " and by reason of his wife, the Gay Duct
Gordon," who was the chief figure in Edinburgh society
aTthe close of the i8th century. A daughter of Maxwell
of Monreith, she is said to have shown her high spirit as
i eirl by riding with her sister down the High Street of
Edinburgh on a sow's back. When the Duke was raising
his regiments of Gordon Highlanders to take part in the
American war, she is said to have recruited a battalion m
a single day by standing at the cross of Aberdeen wit
the King's shilling between her lips as a prize for everv
lad bold enough to come and take it. And it was she who,
when Robert Burns paid his last momentous visit to
Edinburgh in 1786, set the seal upon his fame by her
countenance and hospitality.
A strange contrast to Duke Alexander was his third
brother, that Lord George Gordon who, beginning life in
the Navy, and afterwards entering Parliament, acquired
notoriety as an agitator and leader of the No-Popery Riots
of 1780, afterwards becoming a Jew, and dying at last in
Newgate Gaol.
The fifth Duke, George, a general officer, Governor of
Edinburgh Castle, and G.C.B., was the last of his line.
His statue as " The Last Duke of Gordon," erected by his
Duchess, stands at the cross at Aberdeen. As Marquess of
Huntly he had a distinguished military career, command-
ing the regiment now known as the Gordon Highlanders,
in Spain, Corsica, Ireland, and Holland, where he was
severely wounded, and commanding a division in the
Walcheren expedition of 1809. At his death in 1836, the
dukedom became extinct. Most of the estates, including
Gordon Castle near Fochabers, passed to his eldest sister,
Charlotte, wife of the fourth Duke of Richmond, whose
son, a distinguished statesman, was in 1876 created Duke
of Gordon.
In 1836 the Marquessate passed to the late Duke of
CLAN GORDON 141
Gordon's kinsman, George, fifth Earl of Aboyne. This
nobleman was descended from Lord Charles Gordon,
fourth son of the second Marquess, who, in consideration
of his loyalty and service, was created Earl of Aboyne
by Charles II. at the Restoration in 1660. Aboyne Castle
on Deeside, from which he took his title, had belonged in
early times to the Bissets, the Knights-Templar, and the
Earl of Mar, but had been in the possession of the
Gordons since 1388. A popular ballad, " The Earl of
Aboyne," appears to refer to some incident of the first
Earl's time at the Court of the Merry Monarch. It
describes the Earl's return from London, and the great
preparations made by his wife to receive him ; but alas !
he let slip a word of his too gay goings on with some fair
damsel in the south. The result is a quarrel, the Earl
rides away, and the lady's pleadings are sent after him
in vain. It is only when these are followed by news
of her death that he turns northward again.
My nobles a', ye'll turn your steeds
That that comely face I may see then :
Frae the horse to the hat a' maun be black,
And mourn for bonnie Peggy Irvine!
It was the first Earl who built the present castle of Aboyne.
The Earl of Aboyne, who succeeded as ninth Marquess
of Huntly, was K.T. and Colonel of the Aberdeen Militia.
The present peer, who succeeded in 1863, and who is his
grandson, is the premier Marquess of Scotland. He was a
Lord-in- Waiting to Queen Victoria from 1870 to 1873, was
appointed captain of the Hon. Corps of Gentlemen at
Arms in 1881, and was thrice chosen Lord Rector of
Aberdeen University. He is a Privy Councillor and
LL.D., and personally one of the best-liked personages of
the north.
There are of course many branches of the great house
of Gordon throughout Scotland. Of these the chief is that
of the Gordons of Haddo, which has for its head the
Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair. This branch claims
to represent the original house of Gordon in the male line,
by descent from Gordon of Coldingknowes, celebrated in
song. Its remote ancestor was Patrick Gordon of Methlic,
slain at the battle of Arbroath in 1445. His great-grandson,
James Gordon of Methlic and Haddo, was a warm
supporter of his chief, the fifth Earl of Huntly, in Queen
Mary's interest. His grandson again, Sir John Gordon
of Haddo, was made a baronet of Nova Scotia by
Charles I., in whose service he distinguished himself at
142 CLAN GORDON
the battle of Turriff. Captured at last by the Covenanters,
he was confined in a church in Edinburgh, known from
this fact as " Haddo's Hole," and was executed at the
Cross of Edinburgh in 1644. His second son, Sir George
Gordon of Haddo, was President of the Court of Session
and Lord Chancellor of Scotland, and was made Earl of
Aberdeen in 1682. George, the fourth Earl, was the
distinguished statesman who was Queen Victoria's Prime
Minister at the time of the Crimean War; and the present
head of the house, who is his grandson, has also held
many high offices, including those of Governor-General of
Canada and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. At the end of
his second tenure of this last high post he had the honour
of the Marquessate conferred upon him. His Lordship
was High Commissioner to the General Assembly from
1 88 1 to 1885, and has been Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeen-
shire since 1880. For a considerable time his Lordship's
succession to the Earldom was regarded as uncertain, till
it was declared proved that his elder brother, George, the
sixth Earl, had been drowned while voyaging as an
ordinary seaman from Boston to Melbourne in 1870
Of all the bearers of the name of Gordon, however,
perhaps the most romantic and tragic figure is that of
Charles George Gordon — " Chinese Gordon " — who, after
the most amazing and beneficent career of his time in many
parts of the world, was overwhelmed and slain on the
steps of the Government House at Khartoum, which he
had defended alone against a siege by the Dervish hordes
for three hundred and seventeen days, just as the British
Expedition sent out too late for his relief came in sight
fighting its way up the Nile.
SEPTS OF CLAN GORDON
Adie
Huntlv
Facing page 142.
,-
CLAN GRAHAM
BADGE : Buaidh craobh (laureola) spurge laurel.
PIBROCH : Blar Auldearn (1645) ; Blar Raonruarai (1689) ; Cumha
Chlabhers (1689).
AMONG the ancient names of Scotland there is none that
can claim a higher antiquity than that of " the gallant
Grahams." Though the spelling and pronunciation of
the word Graham is now Saxon, there is every reason to
believe that its earlier form was Celtic, Graem or Grim
being said to be the Pictish word for soldier, and to be
derived from Gruamach or Gramach, " one of stern
aspect." A legend, recounted by the historians Fordoun,
Boece, and Buchanan, runs that it was one of the race
who first, about the year 183, broke through the Roman
barrier between Forth and Clyde, and that it is from this
hero that the wall of Antoninus takes its popular name of
Graeme's Dyke. It is possible, at the same time, that
the name Graeme's Dyke may be less romantically derived
from the word " grym " of the ancient Cymric or British
language, which signifies strength. The Graemes or
Grahams, however, appear in authentic history at a suffi-
ciently early period. In 1128 William de Graeme was a
witness to the charter by which King David founded the
Abbey of Holyrood. In the following century the chief
of the house married a daughter of Malise, Earl of Strath-
earn, and with her received considerable lands in that
district. From that time the principal seat of the family
was Kincardine Castle, on the edge of the beautiful Kin-
cardine Glen, near Auchterarder in Strathearn. This
Sir Patrick de Graham was one of the Scottish knights
who in 1296 made the disastrous attempt to relieve the
castle of Dunbar, held for King John Baliol against the
English by the famous Countess, Black Agnes. The
historian Hemingford tells how Sir Patrick, one of the
noblest and wisest of the Scottish barons, disdained to
ask for quarter, and fell in such gallant fashion as to
extort the admiration of the English themselves. The son
of the marriage with the daughter of the Earl of Strath-
earn was the famous Sir John the Graeme, hero of the
Wars of Independence, who rescued Wallace at Queens-
berry, and was killed in 1298 at the battle of Falkirk,
143
144 CLAN GRAHAM
where his name is still perpetuated in the district of
Grahamston. The lament for his death put into the mouth i
of Wallace by Henry the Minstrel forms one of the finest,!
passages in the famous poem by that author.
" Quhen thai him fand, and gud Wallace him saw,
He lychtyt doun, and hynt him fra thaim aw
In arrays vp. Behaldand his paill face,
He kyssyt him, and cryt full oft, ' Allace !
My best brothir in warld that euir I had !
My afald freynd quhen I was hardest stad !
My hop, my heill, thow was in maist honour !
My faith, my help, my strenthiast in stour!
In the was wyt, fredom, and hardines;
In the was treuth, manheid, and nobilnes;
In the was rewll, in the was gouernans;
In the was wertu withoutyn warians;
In the lawte, in the was gret largnes;
In the gentrice, in the was stedfastnes.
Thow was gret caus off wynnyng off Scotland,
Thocht I began and tuk the wer on hand.
I wow to God that has the warld in wauld
Thi dede sail be to Sotheroun full der sauld.
Martyr thow art for Scotlandis rycht and me;
I sail the wenge, or ellis tharfor de.' '
The grave of this hero in Falkirk kirkyard is still to
be seen, with table stones of three successive periods above
it. As an evidence of the honour in which his memory
was held, it is recalled that, after the second battle of
Falkirk in 1746, when the Highlanders wished to do
special honour to one of their opponents, Sir Robert
Munro, who had fallen, they opened the grave of Sir John
the Graeme and buried him beside the dust of the hero.
One great two-handed sword of Sir John the Graeme is
preserved at Buchanan Castle by the Duke of Montrose;
another was long in possession of the Grahams of Orchil,
and is now treasured by the Free Mason Lodge at
Auchterarder.
Sir John the Graeme was also owner of the estates of
Abercorn and of Dundaff on the Carron. The latter, at
the eastern end of the Kilsyth hills, was once a royal
forest. It is in this ancient forest, on the lands of Halbert-
shire, now Herbertshire, that tradition places the incident
which forms the subject of the famous ballad of " Gil
Morice," on which John Home founded his still more
famous 4< Tragedy of Douglas." The Earl's Burn and
Earl's Hill are said to take their name from the incident,
and the Earl's son of the ballad may possibly have been a
scion of the House of Graham.
By way of contrast to the fame of Sir John the Graham,
CLAN GRAHAM 145
it is recorded that in 1320 Sir Patrick de Graeme was one
of the five knights who took part with William de Soulis,
the seneschal, and David de Brechin, the King's nephew,
in the formidable Soulis conspiracy to overthrow the
King and place the crown on the head of Lord Soulis as
a lineal descendant of the daughter of Alexander II. The
details of the conspiracy are unknown, but Graham, with
several others brought to the trial, was acquitted, while
David de Brechin was executed as a traitor, and Soulis
himself died as a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle. A grim
memorial of this conspiracy came to light in the nineteenth
century, when the monument to Sir David Baird was
being erected on the site of the old castle of the Earls of
Strathearn near Crieff. Accidentally breaking into a
vault, the workmen discovered, along with human remains,
certain gold ornaments and domestic vessels which were
identified as tragic relics of the Countess of Strathearn,
through whose confession the plot was revealed, and who
was sentenced to life-long imprisonment by Bruce.
Sir David Graham of Kincardine was also owner of the
estate of Cardross on the Clyde, and exchanged it for
the lands of Old Montrose in Forfarshire, from which his
family was in later days to take its title. It was to Cardross
that Bruce retired in his latter days, and in Cardross Castle
(caer ros, " the castle on the point ") occurred the scene,
so touchingly described by John Barbour, when the great
king bade farewell to his knights, entrusted the Good Lord
James of Douglas with the carrying of his heart to the
Holy Land, and peacefully breathed his last.
Another Sir David Graham, son of the purchaser of
Old Montrose, was also remarkable for patriotism and
valour. It was he who, at the approach of the English
at the battle of Durham in 1346, earnestly besought King
David II. to order the Scottish cavalry to charge the
English archers. " Give me," he cried, as these archers
came nearer and nearer, " Give me but a hundred horse
and I will scatter them all." Then, even this being refused
him, the brave baron, followed only by his own vassals,
rode against the bowmen. But it was too late; the deadly
shower was already on the way, and the day was lost.
Graham's horse was shot under him and he himself with
difficulty escaped, while the King, grievously wounded
by two arrows, was captured. Graham was one of the
Scottish barons who afterwards secured the ransom of
David II. from the English. To secure the King's free-
dom, Sir David's son, afterwards Sir Patrick Graham,
was for a time one of the Scottish hostages in England.
VOL. i. K
CLAN GRAHAM
It is of this Sir Patrick Graham that the story is told
Jn Winton's Chronicle, how, having returned from a visit
to France, he was challenged by Lord Richard Talbot to
run a course in a tournament, and was wounded through
his habergeon. During the supper which followed, an
English knight asked Graham to run three courses on
the morrow. " Sir Knight," replied the Scotsman, " if
you would joust with me I advise you to rise early and
confess, after which you will soon be delivered." The
jest proved true, for on the morrow in the first course
Graham pierced the English knight deep through the
harness, and he died on the spot. \
Sir Patrick Graham was twice married. William, his
son by his first wife, was his successor, and ancestor of
the great House of Montrose. For his second wife Sir
Patrick married Egidia, daughter of Sir John Stewart
of Ralston, half-brother of King Robert II., and by her
he had four sons, of whom the eldest, Sir Patrick Graham,
married Eupheme, Countess of Strathearn, only daughter
of David, Earl of Strathearn, eldest son of King Robert II.,
by his second marriage with Euphemia Ross. In
right of his wife, Graham became Earl of Strathearn, and
also brought himself and his descendants into the great
struggle, in which the children by King Robert's second
marriage claimed the crown on the pretext that the King's
first marriage to Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan had not
been a lawful one. This Sir Patrick Graham was killed
in 1413 by Sir John Drummond, and left an only child,
Malise, also known as Earl of Strathearn. It was he
whom King James I. deprived of the earldom, on the plea
that it was a male fief, and made Earl of Menteith instead ;
and it was this action which moved the Earl's uncle, Sir
Robert Graham, to renounce his allegiance, and to plot
and carry out the assassination of the King at Perth. It
should be remembered, however, that in this plot Earl
Malise himself seems to have had no share. He lived till
1492, and left three sons, from the eldest of whom
descended the Earls of Menteith and Airth, and from the
second, Sir John Graham of Kilbryde, near Doune, known
for his valour as " Sir John with the bright sword," the
Grahams of the Debatable Land, now represented by the
Grahams of Esk, of Netherby, and of Norton-Conyers,
and of whom came Sir Richard Graham, Viscount
Preston, who was twice arrested and twice pardoned for
the part he played on the side of James VII. during the
troubles of the Revolution.
Of this Menteith family came William Graham, Earl
CLAN GRAHAM 147
of Menteith, Chief Justice and President of the Council of
Scotland in Charles I.'s time, who petitioned that King,
and had the earldom of Strathearn restored to him, but
who foolishly proceeded to go about wagging his head and
hinting significantly of " blood that was redder than the
King's " and his " cousin Charles on the throne." The
matter was brought to the notice of Charles by Drummond
of Hawthornden in his " Considerations to the King,"
and as a result the poor nobleman was forthwith stripped
of both his earldoms and all his offices, and only after a
time re-admitted to the Scottish peerage as Earl of Airth.
After the accession of King James VI. to the English
throne, the Grahams of the Debatable Land, who by their
turbulence had been something of a problem to both
kingdoms, were transported to the north of Ireland, the
county of Cumberland being taxed to the amount of
^408 195. gd. sterling for the purpose, and they are still
among the stoutest of the Ulster men who form the back-
bone of Irish prosperity at the present hour. It is said
to have been regarding this transportation that the song
" Sweet Ennerdale " was written to the pathetic air "1
will awa* and will not tarry." It is preserved in the
! Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and runs as follows :
" Now fare thee well, sweet Ennerdale,
Baith kith and countrie, I bid adieu,
For I maun away, and I may not stay,
To some uncouth land which I never knew.
To wear the blue I think it best
Of all the colours that I see,
And I'll wear it for the gallant Grahams,
That are banished from their ain countrie.
I have no gold, I have no land,
I have no pearl nor precious stane,
But I would sell my silken snood,
To see the gallant Grahams come hame.
In Wallace days, when they began,
Sir John the Graham did bear the gree,
Through all the lands of Scotland wide,
He was the Lord of the south countrie.
And so was seen full many a time,
For the summer flowers did never spring,
But every Graham in armour bright,
Would then appear before the king.
They all were dressed in armour sheen,
Upon the pleasant banks of Tay,
Before a king they might be seen,
These gallant Grahams in array." .
148 CLAN GRAHAM
Much interesting information regarding the later earls
of Menteith— including that last, most pathetic figure of
all, the Beggar Earl who died under a hedge, and lies
buried in Bonhill kirkyard — is to be found in the writings
of Mr. R. B. Cunninghame Graham, late of Gartmore,
now of Ardoch, who is said himself to have grounds for
making a formal claim to the earldom.
Meanwhile the main line of the Grahams of Kincardine
went on. Sir William Graham, son of Sir Patrick, was,
like his father, twice married. By his first wife, Mariota,
daughter of Sir John Oliphant of Aberdalgie, he had a son
whose descendants carried on the Kincardine line; but
secondly, he also made, like his father, a royal alliance,
marrying the Princess Mary, second daughter of King
Robert III. This lady had already been twice married,
to George, Earl of Angus, and to Sir James Kennedy of
Dunure, and after Sir William Graham's death she
married a fourth husband, Sir William Edmonstone of
Duntreath. By his union with this Princess, Sir William
Graham became ancestor of the Grahams of Fintry, of
whom one was the very useful friend to Robert Burns;
likewise of the Grahams of Claverhouse, the most famous
of whom was that John Graham, Viscount Dundee,
immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in the song " Bonnie
Dundee," who lives in Covenanting annals as the best
hated of the royal officers, and in the history of his time
as the brilliant commander of the forces of James VII. in
Scotland, who fell at the moment of victory at the battle
of Killiecrankie in 1689. Another of the sons of Sir
Walter Graham and the Princess Mary was Patrick,
Bishop of St. Andrews, who prevailed upon Pope Sextus
V. to declare the Scottish Church completely independent
of the Archbishop of York, and to erect St. Andrews into
a bishopric, who was sent back to Scotland as papal legate,
only to find his efforts at reform raise a storm among the
Scottish nobles and bishops, who procured his ruin and
his imprisonment in Loch Leven Castle, where he died
in 1478. From the same pair were also descended the
Graemes of Garvock, and the gallant Sir Thomas Graeme,
the hero of Barossa, who was made Lord Lynedoch in
1814.
Sir William Graham himself was for a time, along
with others of the first rank and consequence, a hostage
in England for the great Earl of Douglas who had been
captured at the battle of Homildon Hill ; and while there
it is likely that he made the acquaintance of the young
King James I., then also a prisoner at the English court.
THE GREAT MARQUESS OF MONTROSE, BY VANDYCK,
AT BUCHANAN CASTLE
Facing page 148.
CLAN GRAHAM 149
He was succeeded by his grandson, Patrick Graham of
Kincardine, who, after acting as one 'of the Lords of the
Regency following the assassination of James I., was made
a Lord of Parliament about the year 1445 by the title of
Lord Graham. William, his son, the second Lord
Graham, married Lady Ann Douglas, daughter of George,
fourth Earl of Angus, " the Red Douglas " of James II. 's
time, who in Scottish tradition is remembered as having
" put down the Black." The third Lord Graham took part
in 1488 at the battle of Sauchieburn, in which James III.
fell. In that battle the King's rearward division was
commanded by Graham, Earl of Menteith, with Lords
Erskine and Graham as his lieutenants, and, at a later
day, in 1504, on account of his gallantry, Lord Graham
was made Earl of Montrose. Still later, at the battle of
Flodden in 1513, he led part of the Scottish vanguard
along with the Earl of Crawford, and fell along with his
royal master on the disastrous field. By his third wife,
a daughter of Lord Halyburton, the Earl was the ancestor
of the Grahams of Inchbraikie, while his eldest son, the
second Earl, was ancestor, through the youngest of his
four sons, of the Grahams of Orchil and Killearn.
The eldest son of the second Earl, Robert, Lord
Graham, fell at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. He had
married a daughter of the third Lord Fleming, Great
Chamberlain of Scotland, and his son John, the third Earl,
who fought for the Regent Moray at Langside, was
Chancellor of the Kingdom from 1598 till 1604, and after-
wards Viceroy of Scotland, James VI. having by that time
crossed the Border to assume the English crown.
Lord Graham's eldest son, John, the fourth Earl,
married the eldest daughter of William, first Earl of
Cowrie, and sister of the luckless Earl who fell in the
so-called Cowrie Conspiracy; and the son of the pair,
James, the fifth Earl, born in 1612, was the most brilliant
and illustrious of all his race, the Great Marquess of
Montrose.
The story of this great leader is too well known to
be repeated here. His succession of victories over the
armies of the Covenant at Tippermuir, Alford, Aberdeen,
Inverlochy, and Kilsyth, forms one of the most romantic
chapters of Scottish history, and his surprise and defeat
at Philiphaugh, with his later capture in the north of
Scotland, his vindictive execution at Edinburgh on 2ist
May, 1650, and his splendid second burial in the Cath
of St. Giles eleven years later, after the Restoration, have
ccited interest and sympathy hardly less than that excited
150 CLAN GRAHAM
by the careers and misfortunes of Mary Queen of Scots
and Prince Charles Edward Stewart.
The estates and honours of the house were instantly
restored to the Marquess's son by Charles II. at the
Restoration. This second Marquess, known as " the
Good," married a daughter of the second Earl of Morton,
and his successor espoused a daughter of the Duke of
Rothes, Chancellor of Scotland. During the Great
Marquess's campaign, at the instance of his implacable
enemy, the Marquess of Argyll, the ancient family strong-
hold of Kincardine Castle was besieged, captured, and
destroyed. Afterwards, for a time, the family residence
was Mugdock Castle, near Glasgow, and there was a town
house in the Dry gate of that city. It was at Mugdock
that in the days of Charles II., when the Earl of Middle-
ton was engaged in the proceedings which brought about
the persecution of the Covenanters, he is said to have
engaged with his associates in wild bacchanalian revels.
The stronghold is said to have been acquired by the
Grahams as early as the twelfth century. But in 1682 the
third Marquess acquired the extensive estates on Loch
Lomond side, which had previously belonged to the chiefs
of Buchanan, and from that time onward Buchanan House
and its successor, Buchanan Castle, at the mouth of the
Endrick, have been the chief seats of the family.
The fourth Marquess acquired the property of the Duke
of Lennox in 1702, was made a knight of the Garter and
High Admiral of Scotland in 1705, and Duke of Montrose
two years later, for his part as Lord President of the
Council in Scotland in promoting the Union. On the
accession of George I. in 1714 he became one of His
Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.
To William, the second Duke, the Highlands owe the
repeal of the Act of 1747 which suppressed the use of the
Highland dress. For this service, performed in 1782, His
Grace's memory is held in much veneration by the Gael.
Duncan Ban Macintyre, the famous Gaelic bard, wrote a
poem on the occasion, and for long the Highlanders
gratefully drank as a favourite toast, " deoch slainte
Mhon't-ros." It is interesting to remember that the
daughter of this peer, Lady Lucy Graham, was married
to Archibald Stewart, Lord Douglas, the gainer of the
famous Douglas Cause, in which the House of Lords had
decided that he was the actual son of Sir James Stewart
of Grandtully and Lady Jane Douglas, sister of the first
and last Duke of Douglas.
The Grahams successfully avoided the troubles of the
CLAN GRAHAM 151
Jacobite risings, though they had some minor difficulties
with the wild caterans of Clan Gregor, to whose raids
their estates, lying on the Highland line on Loch Lomond
side, were exposed. During the Earl of Mar's rebellion
in 1715, the Government placed a garrison on the Duke's
property at Dry men, to defend the western passes from
the Highlands, by Aberfoyle and Balmaha; and a little
later there are stories of the " bold Rob Roy," whose
headquarters were at Inversnaid, and who laid claim to
Craigroyston on the lower slopes of Ben Lomond as his
patrimony, seizing the Duke's factor, and compelling him
by successive souzings in the loch to yield up the rents he
had collected in that neighbourhood. But from the time
of the Union downward the House of Montrose has been
one of the most loyal and active in the Government service
of the country. The third Duke, who succeeded in 1790,
was a Knight of the Garter, Lord Justice-General of
Scotland, Lord Lieutenant of the Counties of Stirling and
Dunbarton, and Chancellor of the University of Glasgow.
The fourth Duke was a Knight of the Thistle, Lord
Lieutenant of Stirlingshire, and for a time Postmaster-
General. The present Duke of Montrose was his third
son, two elder brothers of the name of James having died
in 1846 and 1872 respectively. His Grace is the holder
of some seven titles in the peerage of Scotland and two
in the peerage of Great Britain. He is hereditary Sheriff
of Dunbartonshire, General of the Royal Archers of Scot-
land, and Lord Lieutenant of the county of Stirling. He
is a Knight of the Thistle and an A.D.C. to the King,
and has been Lord Clerk Register of Scotland since 1890.
For a few years he held a commission in the Coldstream
Guards and the 5th Lancers, and at a later day he was
commanding officer of the Queen's Own Glasgow
Yeomanry and the 3rd Argyll and Sutherland High-
landers. During the South African War he volunteered
for active service, and, with his battalion, was first on
garrison duty for twelve months in Ireland, and afterwards,
in South Africa, commanded the column which constructed
the block-houses in the north-west of Cape Colony for a
distance of 370 miles, thus contributing very substantially
to the means by which the war was finally brought to an
end. It is interesting to note that by his marriage with
the daughter of Sir Frederick Graham, Bart., of Netherby,
in the old Debatable Land, the Duke linked up two of the
most ancient lines of the House of Graham.
The heir, again, of the House's honours, the Marquess
of Graham, has also done distinguished service to his
152 CLAN GRAHAM
country. In early life he went to sea, and very soon
obtained the certificate of a master mariner. He served
through the South African War in the Army Service
Corps, and for his services received the medal and three
clasps; and, more recently, with the rank of commander,
he organised the Clyde Division of the Royal Naval
Volunteer Reserve, which amply proved its worth by
sending strong contingents upon active service in the
war of 1914. His lordship married in 1906 Lady Mary
Douglas Hamilton, only child of the late twelfth Duke of
Hamilton, and heiress of the island of Arran, which in the
future is likely to form a notable addition to the family
estates.
SHPTS OK CLAN GRAHAM
Allardice Bontine
Bantam Bunten
MacGibbon MacGilvernock
Macgrkne Menteith
GRANT
Facing page 15?.
CLAN GRANT
BADGE : Giuthas (pimis sylvestris) pine.
SLOGAN : Stand fast, Craig Elachaidh.
PIBROCH : Craigelachaidh,
THERE seems no good reason to doubt that Clan Grant
was originally of the same ancient royal stock as Clan
Gregor. It is true that there is a family of the same name
in England, but it is of a separate and different origin,
and probably derived its patronymic from the ancient name
of the river Cam, which was originally the Granta, or from
the ancient designation of Cambridge, which was the Caer
Grant of the early Saxons. Early in -the eighteenth
century, when there seemed some prospect of the pro-
scription of the name MacGregor being removed, a
meeting of the MacGregors and the Grants was held in
Blair Athol, and it was proposed that, in view of their
ancient relationship, the two clans should adopt a common
name and acknowledge a single chief. The meeting
lasted for fourteen days, and, though it finally broke up
without coming to an agreement, several of the Grants,
like the Laird of Ballindalloch, showed their loyalty to the
ancient kinship by adding the MacGregor patronymic to
their name. According to the tradition of the clan, the
founder of the Grants was Gregor, second son of Malcolm,
chief of the MacGregors in the year 1160. It is said he
took his distinguishing cognomen from the Gaelic
Grannda, or " ugly," in allusion to the character of his
features. It is possible, however, that this branch of Clan
Alpin took its name rather from the country in which it
settled. In the district of Strathspey is a wide moor
known as the " griantach," or Plain of the Sun, the
number of pagan remains scattered over its surface show-
ing it to have been in early times a chief centre of the
Beltane or Sun Worship. Residents here would be set
down by the early monkish writers under the designation
of " de Griantach " or " de Grant." This latter sug-
gested origin of the name is supported by the crest of the
Grant family, which is a Mountain in Flames, an obvious
allusion to the Baal-teine or Baal-fire of the early pagan
faith.
153
154 CLAN GRANT
The first of the name to appear in written records was
Gregor, Sheriff of Inverness in the reign of Alexander II.,
between 1214 and 1249. It was probably this Gregor
de Grant who obtained Stratherick through marriage with
an heiress of the Bisset of Lovat and Aboyne. The son of
this magnate, by name Laurence or Laurin, who was
witness to a deed by the Bishop of Moray in 1258, obtained
wide lands in Strathspey by marrying the heiress of
Gilbert Comyn of Glencharny ; and the son of Laurin, Sir
Ian, was a noted supporter of the patriot Wallace.
It may have been about this time that the incident
happened which transferred the stronghold, now known
as Castle Grant in Strathspey, from the ownership of the
once powerful Comyns to that of the Grants. According
to tradition a younger son of Grant of Stratherick ran
away with and married the daughter of his host, the Chief
of MacGregor. With thirty followers the young couple
fled to Strathspey and took refuge in the fastness now
known as Huntly's Cave, a little more than a mile from
the castle, at that time known as Freuchie. Comyn of
Freuchie, little liking such a settlement in his immediate
neighbourhood, tried to dislodge the trespassers, but with-
out result. Then the MacGregor Chief appeared upon the
scene with an armed following and demanded his daughter.
He arrived at night, and was received by his astute son-
in-law with much respect and hospitality. As the feast
went on at the mouth of the cavern, Grant so arranged
the comings and goings of his men in the torchlight and
among the woods that his father-in-law was impressed
with what appeared to be the considerable size of his
following, and, changing his mind with regard to the
desirability of the match, freely forgave the young couple.
Forthwith Grant proceeded to turn his father-in-law's
friendship to account. He told him of the attacks made
upon him by Comyn of Freuchie, and persuaded him to
help in a reprisal. Before morning the united forces of
Grant and MacGregor made an attack on Freuchie, slew
the Comyn chief, and took possession of the castle. As
a token and memento of the occurrence, the skull of Comyn
is carefully preserved at Castle Grant to the present day.
The castle did not immediately change its name, for in
a charter under the Great Seal in 1442 Sir Duncan Grant
is described as " Dominus de eodem et de Freuchie." A
succeeding chief, Sir Ian, joined the Earls of Huntly and
Mar with his clan in 1488 in support of James III. against
his rebellious nobles; so by that time the Grants had
become a power to be reckoned with. Like most of the
CLAN GRANT 155
Highland clans they had their own story of fiery feud and
bloody raid. One of the chief quarrels in which they
were engaged remains notable from the fact that it led
directly to a notorious historical event, the slaughter of
the Bonnie Earl of Moray at Dunibristle on yth February,
1592. The trouble began when the Earl of Huntly, Chief
of the Gordons and of the Catholics of the north, rinding
himself in danger among the Protestant faction at court,
retired to his estates and proceeded to erect a castle at
Ruthven in Badenoch, not far from the Grant country.
This seemed to the Grants and Clan Chattan to be intended
to overawe their district, and difficulties arose when the
members of Clan Chattan, who were Huntly 's vassals,
refused to fulfil their obligations to furnish the materials
for the building. About the same time John Grant, the
Tutor, or trustee, of Ballindalloch, refused certain payments
to the widow of the late laird, a sister of Gordon of Les-
more. In the strife which followed a Gordon was slain,
and as a consequence the Tutor was outlawed and Ballin-
dalloch was besieged and captured by Huntly. That was
on 2nd November, 1590. Forthwith the Grants and
Macintoshes sought the protection of the Earls of Athol
and Moray. They refused Huntly 's summons to deliver
up the Tutor, and when surprised at Forres by the sudden
appearance of Huntly, fled to the Earl of Moray's castle
of Darnaway. Here another Gordon was shot by one of
Moray's servants. This bred bad blood between the two
earls, and later, when the Earl of Bothwell, after an
attempt on the life of Chancellor Maitland, was said to
be harboured by Moray in his house of Dunibristle,
Huntly willingly accepted a commission to attack that
place. Here again a Gordon was mortally wounded, and,
on the Earl of Moray fleeing along the shore, he was
pursued by the brothers of the two slain men, and promptly
put to death. Among other acts of vengeance Huntly
sent a force of Lochaber men against the Grants in
Strathspey, killing eighteen of them, and laying waste the
lands of Ballindalloch. Afterwards, when the young Earl
of Argyll was sent to attack Huntly, the Grants took part
with him at the battle of Glenlivet, and Argyll's defeat
there was mainly owed to the action of John Grant of
Gartenbeg, one of Huntly 's vassals, who, as arranged with
Huntly, retired with his men at the beginning of the
action, and thus completely broke the centre and left wing
of Argyll's army.
The most notable feature in the annals of the clan
during the first half of tho seventeenth century was the
156 CLAN GRANT
career of James Grant of Carron. The determining factor
in the career of this notable freebooter was an event which
had happened some seventy years previously. This was
the murder of John Grant of Ballindalloch by John Roy
Grant of Carron, a son of John Grant of Glen Moriston,
at the instigation of the Laird of Grant, who, it is said,
had conceived a grudge against his kinsman. A feud
between the Grants of Carron and the Grants of Ballin-
dalloch was the result. In the course of this feud, at a
fair at Elgin about the year 1625, one of the Grants of
Ballindalloch knocked down and wounded Thomas Grant,
one of the Carron family. The brother of Thomas, James
Grant of Carron, attacked the assailant and killed him
on the spot. At the instance of Ballindalloch, James
Grant was cited to stand trial, and, as he did not appear,
was outlawed. In vain the Laird of Grant tried to
reconcile the parties, while James Grant offered money
compensation, and even the exile of himself. Nothing
but his blood, however, would satisfy Ballindalloch, and,
driven to despair, with his life every moment in jeopardy,
James Grant finally collected a band of broken men from
all parts of the Highlands, and set up as an independent
freebooter. His career was that of another Gilderoy, or
the hero of the famous MacPherson's Rant. Lands were
wasted by him and men were slain, and Ballindalloch,
having killed John Grant of Carron, the nephew of the
freebooter, was himself forced to flee to the North of Scot-
land. At last, at the end of December, 1630, a party of
Clan Chattan surprised James Grant at Auchnachayle in
Strathdon by night, when after receiving eleven wounds
and seeing four of his party killed, the cateran was taken
prisoner, sent to Edinburgh for trial, and imprisoned in
Edinburgh Castle.
About the same time the famous feud occurred between
Gordon of Rothiemay and Crichton of Frendraught, which
ended in the burning of Frendraught, with Lord Aboyne,
the Marquess of Huntly's son, and several of his friends.
Rothiemay had been helped in the feud by James Grant,
and it was said the latter had been in treaty to undertake
the burning of the mansion.
On the night of isth October, 1632, the freebooter
escaped from Edinburgh Castle by descending on the west
side by means of ropes furnished him by his wife or son,
and fled to Ireland. Presently, however, it was known
that he had returned, and Ballindalloch, setting a watch
upon his wife's house at Carron, almost secured him. The
freebooter, However, shot the chief assailant, one Patrick
ENTRANCE HALL, CASTLE GRANT, AND WEAPONS OF
THE GRANT FENCIBLES
"Facing page 156.
CLAN GRANT 157
MacGregor, and escaped. Presently by a stratagem he
managed to seize Ballindalloch himself, and kept him for
twenty days prisoner in a kiln near Elgin. Ballindalloch
finally escaped by bribing one of his warders, and as a
result several of James Grant's accomplices were sent to
Edinburgh and hanged.
The cateran's final outrage was the surprise and
slaughter of two other friends of Ballindalloch, who had
received money to kill him. A few days later Grant and
four of his associates, finding themselves in straits in
Strathbogie, entered the house of the common hangman,
unaware of his profession, and asked for food. The man
recognised them, and the house was surrounded; but the
freebooter made a stout defence, killing three of the
besiegers, and presently, with his brother Robert, effected
his escape, though his son and two other associates were
captured, carried to Edinburgh, and executed. This took
place in the year 1636, and as no more is heard of James
Grant, it may be presumed that, like Rob Roy Mac-
Gregor, a century afterwards, he finally died in bed.
A few years later, on the outbreak of the Civil War,
when the Marquess of Montrose raised the standard of
Charles I. in the Highlands, he was joined by James,
the sixteenth Chief of the Grants, with his clan, who fought
valiantly in the royal cause.
Twenty-one years later still, in 1666, occurred a strange
episode which added a large number of new adherents to
the " tail " of the Chiefs of Grant. As recorded in a
famous ballad, the Farquharsons had attacked and slain
Gordon of Brackly on Deeside. To avenge his death the
Marquess of Huntly raised his clan and swept up the
valley. At the same time his ally, the Laird of Grant, now
a very powerful chief, occupied the upper passes of the
Dee, and between them they all but destroyed the Farqu-
harsons. At the end of the day Huntly found two
hundred Farquaharson orphans on his hands. These he
carried home and kept in singular fashion. A year after-
wards Grant was invited to dine with Huntly, and when
dinner was over, the Marquess proposed to show his guest
some rare sport. He took him to a balcony overlooking
the kitchen of the castle. Below they saw the remains of
the day's victuals heaped in a large trough. At a signal
from the chief cook a hatch was raised, and there rushed
into the kitchen like a pack of hounds, yelling, shouting,
and fighting, a mob of half-naked children, who threw
themselves upon the scraps and bones, struggling and
scratching for the base morsels. " These," said Huntly,
158 CLAN GRANT
" are the children of the Farquharsons we slew last year."
The Laird of Grant, however, was a humane man; he
begged the children from the Marquess, took them to Spey-
side, and reared them among the people of his own clan,
where their descendants were known for many a day as
the Race of the Trough.
At the Revolution in 1689, Ludovic, the seventeenth
Chief, took the side of William of Orange, and after the
fall of Dundee at Killiecrankie, when Colonel Livingstone
hastened from Inverness to attack the remnants of the
Jacobite army under Generals Buchan and Cannon, at the
Haughs of Cromdale in Strathspey, he was joined by
Grant with 600 men. The defeat of the Jacobites on that
occasion, and the capture of Ruthven Barracks opposite
Kingussie, gave the final blow to the cause of King James
in Scotland.
Again, during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, there
were 800 of the clan in arms for the Government, though
they took no active part against Prince Charles Edward.
The military strength of the Grants was then estimated at
850 men.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Sir Ludovic
Grant, Bart., married Margaret, daughter of James
Ogilvie, fifth Earl of Findlater and second Earl of Sea-
field, and through that alliance his grandson, Sir Lewis
Alexander Grant, succeeded as fifth Earl of Seafield in
1811. Meantime Sir Ludovic's son, Sir James Grant,
had played a distinguished part on Speyside. He it was
who in 1776, in connection with extensive plans for the
improvement of the whole region of middle Strathspey,
founded the village of Grantown, which has since become
so notable a resort. The same laird in 1793, two months
after the declaration of war against this country by
France, raised a regiment of Grant fencibles, whose
weapons now cover the walls of the entrance hall in
Castle Grant.
An unfortunate circumstance in the history of this
regiment was the mutiny which took place at Dumfries.
The trouble arose from a suspicion that the regiment,
which had been raised for service in Scotland only, was
about to be dispatched overseas. A petty dispute having
arisen, some of the men were imprisoned, and were
released by their comrades in open defiance of the officers.
This constituted a mutiny. In consequence the regiment
was marched to Musselburgh, where a corporal and three
privates found guilty of mutiny were condemned to death.
On i6th July, 1795, the four men were marched to Gullane
CLAN GRANT ir>9
links. There they were made to draw lots, and two of
them were shot.
On Sir Lewis Alexander Grant succeeding to the earl-
dom of Seafield in 1811 he added the Seafield family name
of Ogilvie to his own patronymic. The earldom had
originally been granted to James, fourth Earl of Findlater,
in 1701, in recognition of his distinguished services as
Solicitor-General, Secretary of State for Scotland, Lord
Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and High Commissioner
to the General Assembly, and it has received additional
lustre from its connection with the ancient Chiefs of
Grant.1
The grandson of the first earl of the name of Grant,
John Charles, who succeeded as seventh Earl in 1853,
married the Honourable Caroline Stuart, youngest
daughter of the eleventh Lord Blantyre. With the
consent of his son he broke the entail of the Grant
estates, and that son, Ian Charles, the eighth Earl,
at his death unmarried, bequeathed these estates to
his mother. It was the seventh and eighth Earls
who carried out the vast tree-planting operations in
Strathspey which have changed the whole climate of the
region, restoring its ancient forest character, and render-
ing it the famous health resort it is at the present day.
Meanwhile no fewer than three earls succeeded to the title
without possession of the estates. The first of these was
Lady Seafield's brother-in-law, James, third son of the
sixth Earl, who was member of Parliament for Elgin and
Nairn from 1868 to 1874. Francis William, the son of
this earl, born in 1847, had emigrated in early life to
New Zealand. At that time the possibility of his succeed-
ing to the title appeared exceedingly remote. On the
death of the eighth Earl, the emigrant's father succeeded to
the title, and the emigrant himself became Viscount
Reidhaven. He married a daughter of Major George
Evans of the 47th regiment, and though he succeeded to
the title of earl in 1888, it made no difference in his
fortunes, and he died six months later. His son, the next
holder of the title, was eleventh Earl of Seafield and twenty-
fourth Chief of Clan Grant. His lordship's home-coming
to Castle Grant was the occasion of an immense outburst of
enthusiasm on the part of the clan, and afterwards,
residing among his people, he and his countess did every-
1 The first recipient of the title was at the time Lord Deskford,
second son of George Ogilvie, third Earl of Findlater. It was he
who, at the Union, when the Scottish Parliament rose for the last
time, exclaimed, " This is an end of an auld sang! '
ICO CLAN GRANT
thing to endear themselves to the holders of their ancient
and honourable name.
The Earl died on active service in the Great War, and
while his daughter succeeded to the Grant estates and the
title of Seafield, his brother inherited the Barony of
Strathspey and the chiefship of the clan. Lord Strathspey,
with his wife, son and daughter, returned to New Zealand
in 1923.
The Grant country stretches from Craigellachie above
Aviemore to another Craigellachie on the Spey near
Aberlour. It is a country crowded with interesting
traditions. Many a time the wild bands of warriors have
gathered on the shores of the little loch of Baladern on its
southern border, and the slogan of " Stand fast, Craigel-
lachie ! " has been shouted in many a fierce me'le'e. Even
as late as 1820, during the general election after the death
of George III., the members of the clan found occasion to
show their mettle. Party feeling was running high, and
a rumour reached Strathspey that the ladies of the Chief's
house had suffered some affront at Elgin at the instance
of the rival clan Duff. Next morning there were 900
Strathspey men, headed by the factor of Seafield, at the
entrance to the town, and it was only by the greatest tact
on the part of the authorities that a collision was pre-
vented. Even to the present day the old clan spirit runs
strong on Speyside, and the patriotism of the race has
been shown by the number of men who enlisted to defend
the honour of their country in the great war of 1914 on the
plains of France.
SEPTS OF CLAN GRANT
Gilroy
Macifroy
MacGilroy
GRANT OF GLENMORISTON
Facing page 160.
CLAN GRANT OF GLENMORISTON
BADGE : Giuthas (pinus sylvestris) pine.
OF the Siol Alpin, or Race of Alpin, descended from that
redoubtable but ill-fated King of Scots of the ninth
century, there are to be counted Clan Gregor, Clan Grant,
Clan Mackinnon, Clan MacNab, Clan Macfie, Clan
MacQuarie, and Clan MacAulay. These, therefore, have
at all times claimed to be the most ancient and most
honourable of the Highland clans, and have been able
to make the proud boast " Is rioghal mo dhream " —
Royal is my race. It was unfortunate for the Siol Alpin
that at no time were all the clans which it comprised
united under a single chief. Had they been thus united,
like the great Clan Chattan confederacy, they might have
achieved a greater place in history, and might have been
saved many of the disasters which overtook them.
After the young Chief of the Grants, with the help of
his father-in-law, the Chief of MacGregor, had established
his headquarters at Freuchie, now Castle Grant, by the
slaughter and expulsion of its former owners, the Comyns,
the race of the Grants put forth more than one virile branch
to root itself on fair Speyside and elsewhere. Among
these were the Grants of Ballindalloch, the Grants of
Rothiemurchus, the Grants of Carron, and the Grants of
Culcabuck. In the days of James IV., the Laird of Grant
was Crown Chamberlain of the lordship of Urquhart on
Loch Ness, which included the district of Glenmoriston.
In 1509, in the common progress of events, the chamber-
lainship was converted into a baronial tenure, and the
barony was granted to John, elder son of the Chief. The
change, however, instead of aggrandising the family,
threatened to entail an actual loss of the territory, for
John died without issue, and the barony, under its new
tenure, reverted to the Crown.
A similar, but much more disastrous set-back was that
which happened about the same time to the ancient family
of Calder or Cawdor, near Nairn. In the latter case the
old Thane resigned his whole estates to the Crown, and
had them conferred anew on his second son John, and
VOL. i. 161 L
shortly afterwards John died, leaving an only child, a girl
Muriel, who ultimately, by marriage, carried the thanedon
away from the Cawdors, into possession of the Campbells
its present owners.
The case of Glenmoriston was not so irretrievable, for
the barony was acquired by Grant of Ballindalloch. The
latter in 1548 disposed of it to his kinsman John Grant of
Culcabuck, who married a daughter of Lord Lovat, and
John Grant's son Patrick established himself in the district,
and became the ancestor of the Grants of Glenmoriston
It is from this Patrick Grant, first of the long line o
lairds, that the clan takes its distinctive patronymic o
Mac Phadruick.
Patrick's son John, the second chief, married a daught
of Grant of Grant, and built the castle of Glenmoriston,
from which fact he is known in the tradition of his family
as Ian nan Caisteal — John of the Castle.
In James VI. 's time Glenmoriston had its own troubles,
arising from an act which, one would have supposed,
would have been looked upon by any Scotsman as a
warrant against oppression. Clan Chattan, it appears,
had been faithful friends and followers of the Earls of
Moray, and in particular had been active in avenging
against the Earl of Huntly, the death of the " Bonnie
Earl " at Donibristle on the Forth. For these services
they had received valuable possessions in Pettie and
Strathnairn. But presently the Bonnie Earl's son becam
reconciled to Huntly, and married his daughter; then
thinking he had no more need of Clan Chattan, proceeded
to take back these gifts. By way of retaliation, in 162
some 200 gentlemen and 300 followers of the clan too
arms and proceeded to lay waste the estates of the gras_
ing Moray. The latter failed to disperse them, first wit
three hundred men from Menteith and Balquhidder, an
afterwards with a body of men raised at Elgin. He th
went to London and induced James VI. to make hi
Lieutenant of the North. Returning with new powers
the Earl issued letters of intercommuning against Clar
Chattan, prohibiting all persons from harbouring, supply-
ing, or entertaining members of the clan, under sever
penalties. Having thus cut off the clansmen's means
support he proceeded to make terms with them, offerin
them pardon on condition that they should give a fu
account of the persons who had sheltered and helped the
in their attempt. This Clan Chattan basely proceeded
do, and the individuals who had rendered them hospitalit
and support were summoned to the Earl's court a
CLAN GRANT OF GLENMORISTON 163
heavily fined, the fines going into Moray's own pocket. A
striking account of the proceeding is furnished by Spald-
ing the historian. He relates how " the principal male-
factors stood up in judgment, and declared what they had
I gotten, whether meat, money, clothing, gun, ball, powder,
lead, sword, dirk, and the like commodities, and also
< instructed the assize in each particular what they had
gotten from the persons panelled — an uncouth form of
probation, where the principal malefactor proves against
the receiptor for his own pardon, and honest men, perhaps
neither of the Clan Chattan's kin nor blood, punished for
their good will, ignorant of the laws, and rather receipting
them more for their evil nor their good. Nevertheless the
innocent men, under colour of justice, part and part as
they came in, were soundly fined in great sums as their
, estates might bear, and some above their estates was fined,
and every one warded within the tolbooth of Elgin, till the
last mite was paid."
Among those who thus suffered was John Grant of
'iGlenmoriston. The town of Inverness was also mulcted,
and the provost, Duncan Forbes, and Grant, both went to
I London to lay the matter before the king. They did this
^ without success, however, and in the end had to submit
'to the Earl of Moray's exactions.
iln the latter half of the seventeenth century, John, the
sixth Chief of Glenmoriston, married Janet, daughter of
the celebrated Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, and earned
the name of Ian na Chreazan by building for himself the
rock stronghold of Blary. Like Sir Ewen Cameron, his
father-in-law, he raised his clan for the losing cause of
James VII. and II., and fought under Viscount Dundee at
Killiecrankie. The clan was also out under the Earl of
Mar in the rising for " James VIII. and III." in 1715,
and as a result of that enterprise the chief suffered
forfeiture. The estates, however, were restored in 1733.
Patrick, the ninth chief, who married Henrietta, a
daughter of Grant of Rothiemurchus, undeterred by the
misfortune which had overtaken his family on account
of its previous efforts in the Jacobite cause, raised his
:lan for Prince Charles in the autumn of 1745. He was
not in time to see the raising of the Prince's standard at
Glenfinnan, but he followed hotfoot to Edinburgh, where
his clansmen formed a welcome reinforcement on the eve
of the battle of Prestonpans. So eager was he, it is said,
to inform Charles of the force he had brought to support
jthe cause, that he did not wait to perform his toilet before
seeking an interview. Charles is said to have thanked
164 CLAN GRANT OF GLENMORISTON
him warmly, and then, passing his hand over the rough
chin of the warrior, to have remarked merrily that he
could see his ardour was unquestionable since it had not
even allowed him time to shave. Glenmoriston took 'the
remark much amiss. Greatly offended, he turned away
with the remark, " It is not beardless boys that are to win
your Highness' cause I '
This, however, was not the last the Prince was to know
of Glenmoriston, or the last that Glenmoriston was to
suffer for the cause of the Prince. When Culloden had
been fought, and the Jacobite cause had been lost for ever,
Charles in the darkest hours of his fate, wandering a
hunted fugitive among the glens and mountains, found a
shelter with the now famous outlaws, the Seven Men of
Glenmoriston. Only one of them was a Grant, Black
Peter, or Patrick, of Craskie, but it was in Grant's
country, and the seven men, any one of whom could at
any moment have enriched himself beyond the dreams of
avarice by betraying the Prince and earning the ^30,000
set by Government upon his head, proved absolutely
faithful. These men had seen their own possessions
destroyed by the Red Soldiers because of the Prince, and
they had seen seventy of the men of Glenmoriston, who
had been induced by a false promise of the Butcher Duke
of Cumberland, at the intercession of the Laird of Grant, to
march to Inverness and lay down their arms, ruthlessly
seized and shipped to the colonies as slaves, but they
treated Charles with Highland hospitality in their caves
of Coiraghoth and Coirskreaoch, and for that the Seven
Men of Glenmoriston will have an honourable place for
ever in Scottish history.
While the Prince was in hiding in the Braes of Glen-
moriston, two of the Seven Men, out foraging for
provisions, met Grant of Glenmoriston himself. The
chief had had his house burned and his lands pillaged for
his share in the rising, and he asked the two men if they
knew what had become of the Prince, who, he heard, had
passed the Braes of Knoydart. Even to him, however,
they did not reveal the secret of the royal wanderer's hiding. |
And when they asked the Prince himself whether he would
care to see Glenmoriston, Charles said he was so well
pleased with his present guard that he wanted no other.
In the first bill of attainder for the punishment of those
who had taken part in the rebellion the name of Grant
of Glenmoriston was included, but, probably at the instance
of Lord President Forbes, it was afterwards omitted, and
the chief retained his estates.
CLAN GRANT OF GLENMORISTON 165
Patrick Grant's son and successor, John, held a com-
mission in the 42nd Highlanders, and highly distinguished
himself during the brilliant service of that famous regiment
in India, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He
died at Glenmoriston in 1801. His elder son died while
a minor, and was succeeded by his brother James Murray
Grant. This chief married his cousin Henrietta, daughter
of Cameron of Glennevis, and in 1821 succeeded to the
estate of Moy, beside the Culbin Sands in Morayshire, as
heir of entail to his kinsman Colonel Hugh Grant.
CLAN GREGOR
BADGE : Giuthas (pinus sylvestris) pine.
SLOGAN : Ard-choille.
PIBROCH : MacGregor's Salute, and Glen Fruin.
" DON'T mister me nor Campbell me! My foot is on my
native heath, and my name is MacGregor ! " These
words, put into the mouth of the cateran, Rob Roy, by
Sir Walter Scott, express in a nutshell much of the spirit
and history of this famous clan. Strangely enough, no
tribe of the Highlands was more proud of its ancient
name than the MacGregors, and no tribe had to suffer
more for bearing that name, or was more cruelly compelled
to abandon it. " Is Rioghal mo dhream " — my race is
royal — was and is the proud boast of the MacGregors,
and no more bitter fate could be imposed upon them than
to give up the evidence of that descent.
The clan traces its ancestry and takes its name from
Gregor, third son of Alpin, King of Scots in the latter part
of the eighth century, and from Alpin himself it takes its
alternative patronymic, Clan Alpin. Doungheal, the
elder son of Gregor, was the first MacGregor, and handed
on the name to his descendants, while his brother Guarai
became the ancestor of the Clan MacQuary. In the early
feudal centuries the clan possessed a wide stretch of
territory across the middle Highlands, from Ben Cruachan
to the neighbourhood of Fortingall in Glen Lyon, and as
far south as the Pass of Balmaha on Loch Lomondside
and the chain of lochs which runs eastward to Coilantogle
ford in Menteith, not far from Callander. Throughout
all the centuries of Highland history they were notable
for their deeds of valour. When Alexander II. over-
threw MacDonald of the Isles and conquered Argyll
one of the leaders of the royal army was the Mac-
Gregor chief, as a vassal of the Earl of Ross, and as
a reward he received a grant of the forfeited estate of
Glenurchy. A later chief, Malcolm, who lived in the
days of Robert the Bruce, supported that King and the
cause of Scottish Independence with the whole might of
his clan. He was among those who fought stoutly at
Bannockburn, and afterwards he accompanied Edward
166
MAC GREGOR
Facing page 166.
CLAN GREGOR 167
Bruce in his invasion of Ireland. There, at the siege of
Dundalk, he was severely wounded, and through that
circumstance is remembered in the clan story as " am
Mor' ear bacach " — the lame lord. Through that fact
the MacGregor chiefs might have been expected, like
others whose fortunes were built upon their support of
the house of Bruce, to find their prosperity go on like
a rising tide. But this was not the case. The chiefs
made the fatal mistake of adhering to the old order of
things in the security by which they held their lands.
Like the MacKays in the far north, they scorned the
" sheepskin tenure " of feudalism, introduced by Malcolm
Canmore and his sons. Taking their stand on their
descent from the ancient Celtic kings, they kept to the old
allodial system of independent ownership, and determined
still to keep their possessions, as their fathers had done,
by the coire a glaive, or right of the sword. As a result,
throughout the feudal centuries, they found themselves
constantly engaged in brawls over the possession of
territory for which they could show no title-deeds. Their
endeavours to hold their own were looked upon as mere
lawless disturbances of the peace, and again and again
their more powerful neighbours found it profitable, first to
stir them up to some warlike deed, then to procure a royal
warrant for their extermination, and the appropriation of
their territory.
Chief among these enemies were the Campbells of
Loch Awe, who, in the fifteenth century, became Earls
of Argyll, and the collateral branch of the Campbells who,
in later days have held the titles of earls and marquesses
of Breadalbane. A notable incidence of the methods of
these enemies of the MacGregors occurred in the fifteenth
century, when Campbell of Loch Awe induced the
MacNabs of Loch Tayside to pick a quarrel with the
MacGregor chiefs. The two clans met in a bloody
battle at Crianlarich, when the MacNabs were defeated
and all but exterminated. Forthwith Campbell procured
a commission from the King to punish both of the
breakers of the peace, with the result that presently
the MacGregors were forced to procure a cessation of
hostilities by yielding up to Campbell a considerable
part of their territory.
Stories of the clan's escapades in those days make up
much of the tradition of the Central Highlands. On one
occasion the MacGregors made a sudden descent upon the
stronghold on the little island in Loch Dochart. This was
a fastness deemed all but impregnable by reason of the
168 CLAN GREGOR
deep water round it; but the MacGregors chose a winter
day when the loch was frozen, and, sheltering themselves
from the arrows of the garrison by huge fascines of brush-
wood which they pushed across the ice in front of them,
they stormed and took the place. In the gorge of Glen
Lyon, again, there is a spot known as MacGregor's Leap.
Here, after a fierce conflict, in which a sept of the Mac-
Gregors, known as the Maclvers, were all but cut to
pieces, their chief, fleeing before his enemies, came to
the narrowest part of the gorge, and by a wild leap from
rock to rock across the torrent succeeded in making his
escape.
The troubles of the MacGregors came to a climax
towards the close of the sixteenth century. Driven to
desperation, and fired with injustice, they were induced
to perpetrate many wild deeds. In 1588, for example,
took place the dreadful ceremony in the little kirk of
Balquhidder, remembered as Clan Alpine's Vow. A few
days earlier a mysterious body, " the Children of the
Mist," had surprised the King's forester, Drummond-
Ernoch, in Glenartney. They had killed him, cut off his
head, and on their way home along Loch Earnside had
displayed that head in barbarous fashion on the dinner
table at Ardvorlich to the sister of the slain man, who
was Ardvorlich 's wife, by reason of which she had fled
from the house demented. On the following Sunday the
MacGregor clansmen gathered in Balquhidder Kirk
where one after another approached the altar, laid his
hand on the severed head, and swore himself a partner
in the dark deed that had placed it there.
Acts like this were bound to bring upon the clan the
last extremities of fire and sword. The house which
profited most by the reprisals was the younger branch of
the Campbells of Lochow. Already early in the fifteenth
century Sir Colin Campbell, head of that younger branch,
had become laird of Glenurchy, formerly a MacGregor
possession. He had built Kilchurn Castle at the north
end of Loch Awe, and he and his descendants had built
or acquired a string of strongholds across the middle
Highlands, including the castle on Loch Dochart already
referred to, Edinample on Loch Earn, and Finlarig and
Balloch, now Taymouth Castle, at the opposite ends of
Loch Tay. In their heading-pits and on their dule trees
these lairds of Glenurchy executed " justice " on many
persons as the king's enemies and their own, and among
others who suffered publicly on the village green at
Kenmore was a Chief of MacGregor in Queen Mary's
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CLAN GREGOR 169
time, Gregor Roy of Glenstrae. Nevertheless, according
to Tytler, the MacGregors were in the royal army,
commanded by the young Earl of Argyll, which suffered
disastrous defeat at the battle of Glenlivat in 1594.
In 1603, instigated by the Earl of Argyll, Alastair of
Glenstrae made a descent upon the Colquhouns of Luss,
fought a pitched battle with them in Glenfruin on Loch
Lomondside, and defeated them with a loss of 140 men.
The Colquhouns secured the indignation and sympathy of
King James VI. by parading before him a long array of
widows of their clan with the bloody shirts of their hus-
bands upon poles. As a result, Argyll was commissioned
by the Privy Council to hunt the " viperous " MacGregors
with fire and sword till they should be " estirpat and rutit
out and expellit the hail boundis of our dominionis."
This Argyll undertook to do, and among other matters
managed to trap the Chief of MacGregor by persuading
him to accompany him to the new court of King James
in England. He promised to conduct MacGregor safely
into that country and procure his pardon. The first part
of his promise he performed, but no sooner was the Mac-
Gregor Chief across the Tweed than he had him arrested
and carried back to Edinburgh, where he was executed,
with thirty of his clan. At the same time severe laws
were made against the clansmen. Any man might kill a
MacGregor without incurring punishment, and for doing
so receive a free gift of the MacGregor's whole movable
goods and gear. The very name MacGregor was pro-
scribed under pain of death. No MacGregor was allowed
to carry a weapon, and not more than four of the clan
were permitted to meet together. The unfortunate clans-
men, it is said, were even chased with bloodhounds, and
the spot is still pointed out on Ben Cruachan where the
last of them to be hunted in this fashion turned and shot
his pursuer. Among other clans stirred up to attack the
MacGregors were the Camerons, but, even in its extremity,
Clan Alpin mustered its force and, reinforced by its
friends the MacPhersons, marched northward and inflicted
a signal defeat upon the followers of Lochiel.
Through all its troubles, however, Clan Gregor
survived. Among interesting episodes of its history there
is a wild story of the year 1640, remembered on Speyside.
A MacGregor, the tradition runs, wooed, won, and carried
off Isabel, daughter of the Laird of Grant. A member
of the Robertson clan, whose suit had been favoured by
the lady's friends, pursued the fugitives with a number of
his followers. MacGregor took refuge in a barn, and
170 CLAN GREGOR
with dirk and claymore, and a musket which his wife
loaded for him, managed to destroy every one of his
assailants. Then, in the joy of his victory, he took his
pipes, and on the spot composed and danced the wild air
still known as the "Reel o' Tulloch." Alas! this
doughty champion was afterwards shot, and at the sight
of his bloody head which they fiendishly showed her, the
poor girl who had fought so bravely to save her lover
suddenly expired.
Five years later the MacGregors took the field for
King Charles I., with the whole strength of their clan
under Montrose, who promised that the King, when his
affairs were settled, should redress the grievances of the
clan. By way of reprisal Cromwell sent one of his forces
into the fastnesses of Clan Gregor. Loch Katrine, which
took its name from its owners' character as caterans, was
still a possession of the Clan, and on the little islet now
known from Sir Walter Scott's account of it as Ellen's
Isle, they had placed their women for safety. Not a boat
was to be found, though several were seen on the island
shore, and the English officer offered his purse to the
soldier who should cross and bring one back. Forthwith
a young soldier plunged in and swam to the island side.
The exploit seemed easy, and he had indeed laid his hand
on one of the shallops, when the branches parted, a knife
in a woman's hand flashed in the air, and the would-be
ravisher sank in the water dead.
At the restoration of Charles II. the clan was rewarded
for its support of the royal cause by having all its rights
and privileges restored to it; but a generation later, after
the Revolution, this act of clemency was rescinded by
William III., and all the old laws against the MacGregors
were again put in force. It was little wonder, therefore,
that, when the Rebellion of 1715 in favour of the Stewarts
broke out, the clan should favour that cause. John
MacGregor, who was then the Chief, though he had
adopted the name of Murray, was a Jacobite, but he did
not take the field, and instead the clan was led by the
" bold Rob Roy," who belonged to the Dugal Ciar
branch of the family. At the battle of Sheriffmuir he
might have decided the day by charging with his men,
but he prudently waited to see how affairs would turn,
and in reply to the urgent message of the Earl of Mar,
imploring him to attack, he answered that if the day could
not be won without the MacGregors it could not be won
with them.
The next Chief, Robert, raised his clan and mortgaged
o
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Cft
0
:
.
O
£
•' 2
_-
CLAN GREGOR 171
his whole estate for the cause of Prince Charles Edward
in 1745, and refused the offer sent him by the Duke of
Cumberland, that if the MacGregors would lay down their
arms they should have their name and all their privileges
restored. When the day was lost at Culloden the clan
marched from the field with its banners flying, but as a
result the whole MacGregor country was ravaged by the
victorious " Butcher Duke," and the Chief was long con-
fined a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle.
On the death of this Chief in 1758, the honour fell to
his brother Evan, an officer in the 4ist regiment, who
served with much distinction in Germany. The eldest
son of the latter was John Murray, a lieutenant-colonel in
the East India Company's service, and Auditor General
in Bengal. General Murray was created a baronet in 1795,
and on the removal of the laws affecting his name and
family, he resumed by royal licence the original surname
of MacGregor. On that occasion, 826 clansmen of mature
age subscribed a deed acknowledging him to be Chief,
and though the honour was disputed by MacGregor of
Glengyle of the " Sliochd Gregor a Chroie," Rob Roy's
branch, descended from the twelfth chief who died about
1413, Sir John and his descendants have been loyally
recognised as the actual heads of the race.
This reinstatement took place in 1822. In the same
year Sir John Murray MacGregor died. His only son
and successor, Sir Evan MacGregor, was a Major General,
K.C.B., G.C.H., and Governor General of the Windward
Isles, and he married a daughter of the fourth Duke of
Athol. His son, again, Sir John, married the eldest
daughter and co-heir of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Master-
man Hardy, Bart., G.C.B., Governor of Greenwich
Hospital, who was the famous Captain Hardy of Nelson's
ship the Victory at the battle of Trafalgar, and through
this connection several interesting relics of Nelson and
the Victory are preserved at the present seat of the family.
Sir John died Lieutenant-Governor of the Virgin Islands,
and since then, probably through the Hardy connection, the
Chiefs of MacGregor have followed a naval career. His
son, Sir Malcolm, was a Rear-Admiral of the British Navy,
and received the Crimean medal and clasp for Sebastopol,
as well as the Turkish War medal and the medal of
the Royal Humane Society. He married Helen, only
daughter of the ninth Earl of Antrim, and died in 1879.
His eldest son, the present baronet, Sir Malcolm Mac-
Gregor of MacGregor, entered the Navy in 1886, attained
the rank of Commander in 1904, became Assistant to the
172
CLAN GREGOR
Director of the Naval Ordnance at the Admiralty in 1907,
and retired with the rank of Captain in 1911. Sir
Malcolm's sister is the Countess of Mansfield, and his
grand-aunt was the author of a fragmentary history of the
Clan prepared at the request of the Clan Gregor Society.
Edenchip, the present residence of the Chief, stands at
the eastern end of the Braes of Balquhidder, pretty near
the centre of the old country of the clan, and it is pleasant
to think how, after all their fierce trials and troubles of
the past, the chiefs and members of the clan are now able
to settle quietly upon their native heath, and to acknow-
ledge once again the now long respected and always
honourable name of MacGregor.
Among many notable members of the clan throughout
the centuries, MacGregor, Dean of Lismore in the time
of Mary Queen of Scots, should be mentioned for his
famous collection of Ossianic and other Gaelic poetry
known as the Dean of Lismore's Book. Fortingall in
Glenlyon, where he lived, was also the home of a famous
race of MacGregor pipers, known as Clann an Sgeulaich.
SEPTS OF CLAN GREGOR
Black
Fletcher
Gregorson
Greig
Grierson
King
Macara
MacChoiter
Macgruder
Macilduy
MacLiyer
MacNeish
MacNish
Malloch
White
Comrie
Gregor
Gregory
Grier
Grigor
Leckie
MacAdam
Macaree
Macgrowther
MacLeister
MacNee
McNie
MacPeter
Neish
Peter
GUNN
Facing page 172.
CLAN GUNN
BADGE : Craobh Aitean (juniperis communis) juniper.
PIBKOCH : Failte nan Guinneach.
ROUND the coasts of the extreme north of Scotland, and
notably on the eastern and northern shores, the place-
names have an interesting tale to tell. These " wicks "
and " oes " and " dales " speak of the settlements of
Norse and Danish rovers in days now remote. For some
five centuries, down to the time of the battle of Largs, in
1263, that part of the country, along with the Orkneys, the
Shetlands, and the Hebrides, was, in fact, Norwegian
territory, and to the present hour the inhabitants, at any
rate of the coast districts, have probably more Norwegian
than Scottish blood in their veins. This is not least true
in the case of the Clan Gunn, whose possessions lay in the
Kildonan district, about the upper waters of the River
Helmsdale, where Ben Grainmore towers two thousand
feet against the sky, and the mountain glens come down
to the fertile strath of the Helmsdale itself. The soil is
fertile, the little mountain lochs abound with trout and
char, and red deer, grouse, ptarmigan, and blackcock have
always been plentiful on the moors, while grains of gold
are even yet to be found in the sand and gravel of the
streams. It was a country to attract the wild Norse rover,
and round the Pictish towers or castles, of which the ruins
still remain, many a desperate onslaught must have taken
place between the older Pictish inhabitants and the Viking
adventurers before these latter secured possession of the
region,
Clan Gunn, which had its home here in later centuries,
took its name and claimed descent from Guinn, second son
of Olaf the Black, King of Man and the Isles, who died
in 1237. The Gaelic Guinneach signifies fierce, keen,
sharp, and is probably an accurate description of the out-
standing characteristics of the clan. From later chiefs of
the race are descended septs known in modern times by
the names of Jamieson, Johnson, Williamson, Anderson,
Robson, and others, while the Gallies take their name from
a party of the clan which settled in Ross-shire, and was
173
174 CLAN GUNN
known as the Gall-'aobh, or men from the stranger's
The territory of the clan lay on the border between the
country of the Earls of Sutherland and the Earls of Caith-
ness while to the west of it lay Strathnaver, the territory
of the Mackays, otherwise Lord Reay's country. With
all these neighbours the Gunns from time to time had
feuds and friendships, and some of the episodes which
occurred between them were among the most romantic
and desperate in the history of the north. Alike as friends
and as foes the Gunns appear always to have been held in
the highest estimation. It is obvious that, at a very
early date, they had acquired the character of being
" bonnie fechters."
Perhaps the most outstanding event in the history of
the clan was the battle of Alt-no-gaun, fought in the year
1478. The chief of that time, George Gunn, was then the
greatest man in the north, there being then no Earl of
Sutherland to overshadow him. Moreover, he held the
dignity of Crowner, or coroner, then a high officer of
justice. In virtue of this office the chief wore as a badge
a large silver brooch, from which he was known as Fear a
Bhuaisteach mor. In his time a member of the family of
Keith, afterwards Earls Marischal, married the heiress of
the Cheynes of Acrigil, and thus obtained a footing on the
borders of the Gunn country. The Gunns looked with
little pleasure upon the appearance of the followers of such
a powerful family in their neighbourhood, and accordingly
disagreements and a serious feud sprang up between them.
With a view to an understanding a meeting was held in
the chapel of St. Tain, but this aggravated rather than
diminished the differences between the parties, and, matters
having come to a head, an arrangement was made to fight
out the quarrel at an appointed place. Each chief was to
appear with his relations, a party of not more than twelve
horse, and the battle was to be fought to the death.
The place chosen was a remote part of Strathmore, but
when the Crowner and his eleven champions reached the
spot they found that the Keiths were double their number,
having treacherously mounted two men on each horse.
This action, however, merely enraged the Gunns, who
hurled themselves into the combat with added fury and
desperation. Both sides fought till they could fight no
more, and when the battle was over the Crowner and seven
of his clan lay dead, while the Keiths were barely able to
carry their slain and wounded from the field. Of the
Gunns the five who survived were all sons of the Chief,
CLAN GUNN 175
and all wounded. As night fell they sat down by the bank
of a stream, where Torquil, the one most slightly wounded,
washed and dressed the injuries of the other four. As they
talked over the disaster of the day the youngest of them,
Little Henry, burning to revenge defeat and the treachery
of the Keiths, and to recover his father's sword, brooch,
and armour, induced two of his brothers — the only two
still able to fight — to go with him in pursuit of the
victorious party. They came up with the latter at the
castle of Dalraid. By this time it was night, and through
the narrow window Henry Gunn and his brothers looked
in and saw the Keiths drinking ale and relating to their
hosts, the Sutherlands, the incidents of the day's encounter.
Little Henry watched his chance, and as the Chief of the
Keiths raised the tankard to his lips he bent his bow and
sent an arrow through his heart, at the same time calling
out " Beannachd na Guinnich do 'n Chai " — the Gunn's
compliment to Keith ! The company inside dashed for
the door, and as they came out several were killed by the
Gunns/ who were waiting for them. It was no equal
match, however, and the Gunns presently retired under
cover of the darkness, and making for the spot where they
had left their brother, all five retreated in safety to their
own country.
A hundred years later the Chief of the Clan, Alastair
Gunn, was again a man of much note and power in the
north. He had married a daughter of the Earl of Suther-
land, and felt himself entitled to hold his head high among
the best in Scotland. This, alas ! led to his undoing.
One day, about the year 1562, marching, with his " tail "
of followers behind him, along the High Street of
Aberdeen, he happened to encounter no less a person than
Queen Mary's half-brother, the Earl of Moray, also with
his followers. Owing to the condition of the thoroughfares
at that time it was not less a point of honour than a matter
of convenience to keep the crown of the causeway. This
the Earl, by reason of his rank, of course considered
himself entitled to, but the haughty Chief of the Gunns
showed no disposition to yield the point. In the upshot
the Earl by means of one Andrew Munro, entrapped
Gunn at the Delvines, near Nairn, whence he was carried
to Inverness, where Moray had him executed " under
pretence of justice."
Twenty-three years later, in 1585, the clan found itself
involved against its neighbours on each side, the Earls of
Sutherland and Caithness, heads of the most powerful
houses then in the north. It looked as if the Gunns were
176 CLAN GUNN
to be the earthen pipkin crushed between two iron pots,
yet they seemed no whit dismayed, and managed to hold
their own in valiant fashion. The two earls planned to
come upon the Gunns from both sides at once, and,
" thereby so to compass them that no place of retreat might
be left unto them." The Gunns took up their position in
an advantageous spot on the side of Ben Grian. There
their enemies, seeing them much fewer in number than
themselves, made the fatal mistake of thinking lightly of
them. Instead of waiting for the Sutherlands to come up
and attack simultaneously, the Sinclairs rushed impulsively
forward. The Gunns waited till their enemies, breathless
with the steep ascent, were close upon them. Then they
poured a flight of arrows into them at close quarters, and,
rushing down the slope, cut down the commander of the
Sinclairs with 120 of his men. The rest they pursued till
darkness fell. The Gunns were followed, however, by the
Earl of Sutherland's force, which pursued them as far west
as the shores of Lochbroom. There the Gunns were
brought to an encounter, when they were defeated, their
captain, George Gunn, being wounded and taken prisoner,
and thirty-two of the clan being slain.
Later in the same reign, in 1616, John, Chief of the
Gunns, suffered for the part he was compelled to play as
an ally of the Earl of Caithness. The earl, being desirous
of visiting his displeasure upon a certain William Innes,
brought pressure upon the Chief of the Gunns to burn the
corn stacks of Innes's tenants. This, John Gunn long
refused to do, offering instead to " do his best to slay
William Innes." The earl, however, continued to insist;
in the end the corn stacks were burned, thereby no doubt
inflicting severe hardship upon the people of the district;
and as a result the Chief of the Gunns was rigorously
prosecuted and imprisoned in Edinburgh.
A generation later a notable member of the clan was
Crowner or Colonel Gunn, a native of Caithness, who,
like so many other hardy Scots of that time made a place
and a name for himself in the wars abroad. He appears in
Scottish history when the Marquess of Montrose, then on
the Covenanting side, was besieging the Tower of Gight in
Aberdeenshire. Word reached the Marquess that a
King's force had landed at Aberdeen, and raising the
siege he retreated precipitately to Edinburgh. The force
actually landed, however, was a small one, and the most
important of its officers was Crowner Gunn. On the
failure of the cause of Charles I. the Crowner returned to
Germany, where according to the historian of the house
CLAN GUNN 177
of Sutherland he became a major-general in the imperial
army, and a baron of the empire, marrying " a rich and
noble lady beside the imperial city of Ulm, upon the
Danube."
The early seat of the Chiefs of the Clan was the old
castle of Hallburg, the name of which sufficiently indicates
its Danish or Norwegian origin. In its time this strong-
hold was considered impregnable. In later days the Chiefs
of the Gunns had their seat at the castle of Kilearnan till
it was destroyed by fire in 1690.
Strangely enough, after the long warlike history of the
clan, the chief means of its dispersion was the introduction
of the peaceful sheep. In the twenty years between 1811
and 1831 sheep-raising as a new industry displaced the old
breeding of black cattle in the Highlands of Scotland.
To make way for it in this district the notorious Sutherland
clearances took place. In the former year the population
of Kildonan parish, which measures some 250 square
miles, numbered 1,574. To make way for sheep-farming
most of that population was removed to the neighbouring
parish of Loth, and in the glens where hundreds of families
of the name of Gunn had for centuries had their happy
though humble and too often abjectly poor homes, nothing
was to be heard but the bleat of the sheep, the call of the
grouse, and the crow of the blackcock. In 1851 the parish
of Loth was united to that of Kildonan, and by this means
the number of the population was more than restored.
Meanwhile, however, many of the old clan of the Gunns
had gone out to the world, never to return to the scenes
of the doughty deeds of their ancestors.
At the present day the Chiefship of the clan is believed
to rest with the family of Gunn of Rhives, which is
descended from the second son of MacSheumais, the fifth
Chief.
Among the members of the clan who have attained
name and fame may be enumerated Barnabas Gunn,
musical composer, who died organist of Chelsea Hospital
in 1753; John Gunn, author of an Historical Enquiry
respecting the Performance of the Harp in the Highlands,
and other musical works, who flourished at the end of the
eighteenth century; William Gunn, Episcopal clergyman
in England and antiquarian writer, who, early in the
nineteenth century, published extracts from the Vatican
MSB., an account of the Vatican tapestries, and a tenth-
century MS. of the Historia Britonum; Daniel Gunn
(1774-1848), the congregational minister, celebrated for his
unemotional preaching and his schools at Christchurch,
VOL. I. M
178
CLAN GUNN
Hampshire; and Robert Campbell Gunn, the naturalist
(1808-1881), who, when superintendent of convict prisons
in Tasmania, sent home many interesting specimens of
previously unknown plants and animals.
SEPTS OF CLAN GUNN
Gallic
Georgeson
Johnson
Keene
MacCorkill
Maclan
MacKeamish
MacOmish
MacWilliam
Nelson
Robson
Swanson
Wilson
Gunnson
Henderson
Jamieson
Kean
MacComas
MacKames
MacKean
MacRob
Manson
Robison
Sandison
Williamson
LAMONT
Facing page 178.
.
CLAN LAMONT
BADGE : Luidh Cheann (octopetala) dryas.
PIBROCH : Spaidsearachd Chaiptein Mhic Laomainn.
AMONG the clans of the West Highlands which appear to
be able to claim actual descent from early Celtic stock,
Clan Lamont may be considered one of the most assured.
There is some reason to believe that the Lamont chiefs
were originally a branch of the great house of O'Neil,
kings of Ulster in early times. The hand surmounting
the old Lamont crest is pointed to as being undoubtedly
the " Red hand of Ulster," and the Lamont motto, " Nee
parcas nee spernas," is also pointed to as indicating the
close relationship, while the documents of early times
which refer to the Chief as " The Great Lamont of
Cowal " seemed to indicate a relationship with the Ulster
title of " The Great O'Neil." The name Lamont appears
to date from the middle of the thirteenth century. One
feudal charter of that time was granted by " Laumanus
films Malcolmi, nepos Duncani, films Fearchar," convey-
ing lands at Kilmun and Lochgilp to Paisley Abbey, while
another, dated 1295, is by " Malcolmus filius er haeres
domini quondam Laumani." It is from this Lauman that
the later chiefs take their name, and are styled Mac-
Laomainn. Before the date of these charters the chiefs
are said to have been named Mac'erachar from their early
ancestor, Farquhar, grandfather of Lauman, who lived
about the year 1200. In any case, from a very early time
the Laments appear to have possessed the greater part of
Cowal, and the ruins of several of their strongholds still
remain to attest their greatness.
The beginning of their eclipse may be dated from the
middle of the fourteenth century. In 1334, when Edward
Baliol had overrun Scotland, basely acknowledging
Edward III. of England as his suzerain, and when, as a
consequence of the battles of Dupplin and Halidon Hill,
it had looked as if all the labours and victories of Robert
the Bruce had been in vain, Bruce's young grandson,
Robert the High Steward, suddenly turned the tables.
From hiding in Bute he escaped to Dunbarton, raised his
vassals of Renfrewshire, and stormed the stronghold of
179
180 CLAN LAMONT
Dunoon. This was the signal for the Scots to rise, and
before long Scotland was once more free. Among those
who helped the High Steward on this occasion, was Sir
Colin Campbell of Lochow, and when Robert the Steward
became King Robert II. in 1371, he made Campbell
hereditary keeper of his royal castle of Dunoon. From
that day the Campbells used every means to increase their
footing in Cowal, and before long a feud broke out
between them and Clan Lament, the ancient possessors of
the district, which was to end, nearly three centuries later,
in one of the most tragic incidents of Highland history.
One of the first episodes of the feud took place in the
year 1400. The King's court was then at Rothesay
Castle, and from it, one day, three young lords crossed
over to hunt at Ardyrie in the Lament country. As a
sequel to their excursion, they tried to carry off some of
the young women of Cowal ; at which four sons of the
Lament Chief came to the rescue and slew the ravishers.
A garbled account of the incident was carried to the court,
and as a result, the King confiscated the Lament territory
in Strath Echaig, and conferred it on the Campbell chief.
Forty years later another incident occurred in which
the generosity of the chief of Clan Lament was turned tc
account by his enemies. Celestine, son of Sir Duncai
Campbell the Black Knight of Lochow, had died while
being educated in the Lowlands. It was winter, and b]
reason of the deep snows, Campbell professed to find it
impossible to convey the body of his son through the
mountain passes to Loch Awe. He accordingly asked
permission from the Lament chief to bury his son in the
little Lamont kirk at Kilmun on the Holy Loch. Per-
mission was granted in terms thus translated from the
Gaelic : " I the Great Lamont of all Cowal do give unto
thee, Black Knight of Lochow, the grave of flags wherein
to bury thy son in thy distress." Soon afterwards the
Campbell chief endowed the burial-place of his son as a
collegiate church, and from that day to this Kilmun has
remained the burial-place of the Argylls. In 1472 Colin,
Earl of Argyll, obtained a charter of further lands about
Dunoon Castle, including the West Bay and Innellan, and
the stronghold of Dunoon appears forthwith to have
become a chief seat of the Argylls.
Still the Laments appear to have been willing to act the
friendly part to the Campbells. In 1544, when Henry VIII.
was seeking to annex Scotland by forcibly obtaining
possession of the infant Queen Mary, and when, to support
the enterprise, the Earl of Lennox sailed with an English
CLAN LAMONT 181
fleet up the Firth of Clyde, the Laments mustered to help
the Campbells in defending the stronghold of Dunoon.
On that occasion Lennox landed under cover of the fire
from his ships, forced the Lamonts and Campbells to
retreat with much slaughter, burnt Dunoon, and plundered
its church.
A pleasant contrast to that episode was the visit of
Queen Mary herself nineteen years later. The Countess
of Argyll was the Queen's favourite half-sister, and it is
narrated how Mary, then twenty-one years of age, on
July 26th rode from Inveraray and slept at Strone, a
Lamont seat; how, next morning, she came to Dunoon,
where she spent two days in hunting, and signed several
charters; and how on the igth she rode to Toward Castle,
where she dined with the chief of Clan Lamont, Sir John
Lamont of In very ne, before ferrying across to Southannan
at Fairlie, on the Ayrshire coast. On that occasion the
.Queen may have been entertained with music from the
famous ancient Celtic harp, which was a treasured posses-
sion of the Lamonts for several centuries. About the year
1640 this harp passed by marriage into possession of the
Robertsons of Lude, and it is described and illustrated in
Gunn's elaborate work on the music of the Highlands.
It was a few years after this that an event occurred
which throws a vivid light upon the chivalric character
of these old Highland chiefs. The incident took place
either in 1602 or 1633. The tradition runs that the son of
a Lamont chief had gone hunting on the shores of Loch
Awe with the only son of MacGregor of Glenstrae. At
nightfall the two young men had made their camp in a
cave, when a quarrel arose between them, and in the
sudden strife Lamont drew his dirk, and MacGregor fell
mortally wounded. Pursued by MacGregor's retainers,
the aggressor fled, and, losing all idea of his way in the
dark, and at last espying a light, applied for shelter at
MacGregor's own house of Glenstrae. The old chief was
stricken with grief when he heard the tale, and guessed it
was his own son who had been slain. But the Highland
laws of hospitality were inexorable. " Here this night,"
he said, " you shall be safe "; and when the clansmen
arrived, demanding vengeance, he protected young
Lamont from their fury. Then, while it was still darlq, he
conducted the young man across the hills to Dunderave
on Loch Fyne, and procured him a boat and oars.
" Flee," he said, " for your life; in your own country
we shall pursue you. Save yourself if you can ! '
Years afterwards an old man, hunted and desperate,
182 CLAN LAMONT
came to Toward Castle gate and besought shelter. It was
MacGregor of Glenstrae, stripped of his lands by the
rapacious Campbells, and fleeing for his life. Lamont
had not forgotten him, and he took him in, gave him a
home for years, and when he died, buried him with all the
honour due to his rank in the little graveyard about the
chapel of St. Mary on the farm of Toward-an-Uilt, where
his resting-place was long pointed out.
As is well known, the Campbells had been engaged for
over a century in making themselves masters of the ancient
lands of Clan Gregor, and it may be that this act of
hospitality to the old MacGregor chief formed the last
drop in the cup of the ancient feud which brought
destruction upon Clan Lamont.
The story of the final act of the feud was told lately by
Mr. Henry Lamond, a member of the clan, in the pages
of the Clan Lamont Journal for 1913. The original
account is to be found in the charge of high treason and
oppression brought against the Marquess of Argyll in 1661,
included in Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials,
vol. v. The author of this account rightly says that,
while the massacre of the MacDonalds of Glencoe in 1692
still sends a shudder through the veins of the reader of
history, not less horror would attend a perusal of the
Dunoon massacre, were it as generally known. As a
matter of fact, the massacre of the Laments by the Camp-
bells at Dunoon was a much more dreadful affair than
even the massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells
at Glencoe. The incident took place after the defeat of the
forces of King Charles I. under the Marquess of Montrose
at Philiphaugh in 1646. By that victory the Marquess of
Argyll, chief of the Campbells and of the Covenanting
party in Scotland, became absolute ruler of the kingdom,
and he forthwith proceeded to use his powers for the
destruction of three of the clans from whom his family had
been engaged in seizing lands and power for several
centuries bygone. First the MacDonalds were stormed
and massacred in their stronghold of Dunavertie at the
south end of Kintyre ; then the MacDougals saw their last
castles of Gylen and Dunolly overthrown and given to the
flames; and, last of the three, the Lamonts were attacked
and well-nigh exterminated in their own region of Cowal.
Sir James Lamont of Inveryne, knight, then chief of
the Clan, had been educated at Glasgow University, had
represented Argyllshire in the Scottish Parliament, and
had been King Charles' commissioner and a friend of the
Marquess of Montrose. In fairness to Argyll it should be
-
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CLAN LAMONT 183
mentioned that the commission to Sir James, given under
the hand of King Charles I. in March, 1643, authorised
and ordered him to prosecute a war and levy forces in His
Majesty's name against those in rebellion, and particularly
against the Marquess of Argyll, and that, in accordance
with this commission, Sir James had gathered together
his friends and followers. But upon the king's surrender
to the Scottish army at Newcastle, Lament had laid down
arms and retired peaceably to his own houses of Toward
and Ascog. The indictment goes on to relate how, after
the overthrow of Montrose at Philiphaugh, James Camp-
bell of Ardkinglass, Dugald Campbell of Inverawe, and
other officers, under the order of the Marquess of Argyll,
laid siege to these two houses. On the third of June,
Lamont surrendered upon conditions, signed by seven of
the Campbell leaders, which granted indemnity to the
Laments in person and estate, with power to pass freely
where they pleased. But no sooner were the strongholds
yielded than the Campbells proceeded to plunder them
utterly, and to waste the whole estates and possessions of
the Laments, doing damage to the extent of .£50,000
sterling, and in the course of their operations murdering
a number of innocent women, whose bodies they left fof
a prey to ravenous beasts and fowls. While the plunder-
ing was going on, Sir James and his friends and clansmen
were kept guarded in the house and yards of Toward, with
their hands cruelly bound behind their backs in the
greatest misery. The Campbells next burned Ascog and
Toward to the ground, threw their prisoners into boats,
and conveyed them to Dunoon. There they hanged
thirty-six persons, most of them gentlemen of the name
of Lamont, upon a growing ash tree behind the church-
yard. The rest, to the number of over two hundred and
fifty, they stabbed with dirks and skeans at the ladder foot,
and cast, many being still living, spurning and wrestling,
into pits, where they were buried alive. So much did the
horror of the circumstances impress people's minds, that
it was said the tree withered and its roots ran blood, till
the Campbells at last found it necessary to " Houck out
the root, covering the hole with earth, which was full of
the said matter like blood."
Sir James Lamont himself was spared, and, being
carried to Inveraray, was forced to sign a paper declaring
that he himself had been in the wrong; and he was after-
wards kept a close prisoner at Dunstaffnage, where, under
a threat of being kept in the dungeon " until the marrow
should rot within his bones," he was forced to sign a deed
184 CLAN LAMONT
yielding up his estates. He was also made to sign a bond
for 4,400 merks as payment for his four years' entertain-
ment in the castle. He was afterwards imprisoned at
Inisconnell in Loch Awe, and in Stirling Castle, and was
only liberated when Cromweh overran the country in
1651.
This act of massacre and oppression against Clan
Lamont formed the chief item upon which Argyll was
charged after the Restoration, and if it were for nothing
but this alone, he may be held to have richly deserved his
fate when his head fell under the knife of the " Maiden."
The massacre, however, had meanwhile exercised a far-
reaching effect upon the fortunes of the clan, many of
whom, harried and driven from their lands, had been
forced to assume other names, so that to the present hour
there are many Browns and Blacks and Whites both in
Cowal and elsewhere, who are of pure Lamont descent.
The incident of the massacre, terrible as it was, had
been all but forgotten by everyone except the Laments
themselves and a few people who took an interest in the
history of Cowal, till, a few years ago, the Clan Society
was formed, and set about erecting a monument on the
spot where so many of the clansmen had suffered a violent
death.
Sir James Lamont was reinstated in his property in
1663, but Toward Castle was never rebuilt by the Lamont
chiefs, and stands a sad ruin yet among its woods. The
modern Toward Castle was built by Kirkman Findlay,
the famous East India merchant of Napoleonic times.
The later seat of the Lamont chiefs was Ardlamont House,
on the promontory between Tignabruaich and Loch Fyne,
but following a notorious murder which took place there
during the occupancy of some English tenants, about the
beginning of the twentieth century, the estate was sold,
and the chief of the clan now resides principally at West-
ward Ho in Devonshire.
The present Chief, twenty-first of the name, is Major
John Henry Lamont of Lamont, and he has a record
behind him of hard fighting in the great Afghan War, in
which he took part as a lieutenant in command of a troop
of cavalry in the famous march under Lord Roberts to
the relief of Kandahar and the crushing defeat of Ayoub
Khan. Major Lamont is a famous polo player, steeple-
chase rider, and follower of hounds, and the only regret
of his clansmen is that he no longer lives upon the acres
of his ancestors. He is unmarried, and his apparent
successor in the chiefship is Edward Lewis Lamont,
CLAN LAMONT 185
Petersham, N.S.W., Australia, a great-grandson of the
eighteenth chief. He is the eldest son of the late Edward
Buller Lament of Monidrain, Argyllshire, and grandson
of the late Captain Norman Lamont, M.P. for Wells,
Somersetshire, who was second son of the eighteenth chief.
He is unmarried, but has numerous nephews to support
the chiefship of the clan.
The only landed man of the name now in Cowal is Sir
Norman Lamont, Bart., of Knockdow. His father, the
first baronet, who died on 2Qth July, 1913, in his eighty-
sixth year, was the only son of Lieutenant-Colonel
Alexander Lamont of Knockdow, whom he succeeded as
laird in 1861. Sir James, who as a young man held a
commission in the gist Argyllshire Highlanders, was a
noted big-game hunter in Africa, and had a story of strange
adventures in Greece, Egypt, and Turkey. In his own
yachts, the Ginevra and the Diana, he made several
expeditions to the Polar seas which, though their
primary object was sport, resulted in some valuable con-
tributions to geographical and other knowledge. He
published accounts of his adventures in two racy books,
Seasons with the Sea-Horses and Yachting in the Arctic
Seas, and in 1912-3, over the signature " 84," he pub-
lished a series of ten articles of sporting reminiscences
which attracted a great deal of attention. He was also
for a time member of Parliament for Bute, for which also
his elder surviving son, the present baronet, was member
from 1905 till 1910.
Among many other members of the clan who have dis-
tinguished themselves may be cited David Lamont, D.D.,
who was chaplain to the Prince of Wales in 1785,
Moderator to the General Assembly in 1782, and appointed
chaplain in ordinary for Scotland in 1824; also Johann von
Lamont, the astronomer and magnetician of last century,
who was Professor of Astronomy in the University of
Munich, and executed the magnetic surveys of Bavaria,
France, Spain, North Germany, and Denmark. The
work of John Lamont, the diarist of the seventeenth
century, also remains of great value to the Scottish
genealogist.
The latest evidence of the clan's activities is the Clan
Lamont Society, instituted a few years ago, which is now
a flourishing institution in the West of Scotland. Its
inception in 1895 was largely due to Lieutenant-Colonel
Lamont, V.D., a descendant of the MacPatrick branch
of the clan. Colonel Lamont is the author of a brochure
on the Lamont tartan, which has attracted wide notice
186 CLAN LAMONT
among students of these things, and is of the deepest
interest to the clan.
SEPTS OF CLAN LAMONT
Black
Bourdon
Lamb
Landers
Limond
Lucas
Macalduie
MacGillegowie
Macilwhom
MacLucas
MacPatrick
MacSorley
Patrick
Toward
Turner
Brown
Lambie
Lamondson
Lemond
Limont
Luke
MacClymont
MacLamond
MacLymont
MacPhorich
Meikleham
Sorley
Towart
White
CLAN LINDSAY
BADGE : Rugh (Thalietrumo) Rue.
AN astonishingly varied array of memories is associated
with the name of Lindsay in Scottish annals. The family
has shone alike in letters and in arms, and has a history,
marked alternately with deep shadows and brilliant lights.
At the present hour the race is one of the most numerous
in Scotland, and counts the holders of three earldoms and
other honours on its roll of fame.
As with many other of the great houses of Scotland,
the first ancestor of this family seems to have migrated
into the country at the time when Malcolm Canmore and
his sons were setting up a new dynasty supported by a
feudal system of land tenure. The cautious old Scottish
chronicler, Andro of Wyntoun, briefly remarks :
" Out of Englande come the Lyndysay;
Mair of thame I can nocht say."
According to the English antiquary, Sir William Dugdale,
the surname was first assumed by the owners of the manor
of Lindsai in Essex, but the locality is not now known.
They are believed to have been derived from the Norman
house of De Linesay, and to have " come over with the
Conqueror." There were several considerable families of
the name in England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In the Inquest of David, Prince of Cumbria, into the
possessions of the See of Glasgow before 1124, the name
of Walter de Lindeseya appears as one of the witnesses,
and there is charter evidence to show that the chief Scottish
families of the name are descended from him.
According to Chalmers, the most famous of the Scottish
antiquaries (Caledonia, ii. 433), " an English emigrant
named Lindsay," during the twelfth century, became pos-
sessor of the lands of Luffenach, now Luffness, in East
Lothian. He is said tq have possessed all the lands of
Ercildoune and Locharret, or Lockhart. In the time of
William the Lion his son, David de Lindsay, possessed
the estate, and his son again, another David, granted the
monks of Newbotle freedom from tolls in the port of
187
188 CLAN LINDSAY
Luffenach. At the same time there were Lindsays, father
and son, of Crawford in Upper Clydesdale, who were like-
wise both named David, and were benefactors to the
monks of Newbotle. The latter of the two appears
further to have been the David de Lindsay of Brennewell
who, after 1233, gave the monks of Balmerinoch twenty
shillings yearly to pray for the soul of Queen Ermingarde,
who was possibly his relative. This David de Lindsay
was one of the Scottish knights and prelates who swore
to uphold the treaty between Alexander II. and Henry of
England in 1244, when the English king had marched
north to avenge the overthrow of the Bissets of Aboyne.
The same David de Lindsay obtained the lands of Gar-
mylton and Byres in Haddingtonshire from Gilbert the
Marischal, who had probably obtained them by his
marriage with Marjory, sister of King Alexander II., in
1235. His second son, William, was Chamberlain of
Scotland in the time of Robert the Bruce.
In 1285 also King Alexander III. granted a charter ro
Sir John de Lyndsay, who was Great Chamberlain of
Scotland, to hold the lands of Wauchope in Dumfries-
shire as a barony. The author of the Lives of the
Lindsays conjectured this Sir John to have been a younger
son of Sir David de Lindsay of Luffness, but as the later
Lindsays of Wauchope claimed to represent the eldest line
of the race, it is possible that Wauchope was the earliest
possession of the family in Scotland. It was probably
this Sir John de Lindesay who, as one of the six great
barons of the realm, swore to acknowledge the Maid of
Norway as heir to the Scottish throne, and who in 1289
was one of the attorneys for the trustees of the deceased
Alexander III. His son, Sir Philip, took part with
Edward of England against the Scots in the Wars of
Succession, invaded Scotland with Percy, and was present
at the siege of Stirling, but went over to Bruce after
Bannockburn, and so retained his estate in Wauchope-
dale. In the Chronicle of Lanercost there is a quaint
story told of him seeing a vision of St. Cuthbert, and so
reforming his life. His brother, Sir Simon, was also a
great man on the English side, and virtual Warden of
the West Marches. He was a prisoner after Bannock-
burn, and forfeited by Bruce, but his son, Sir John, got
a charter of Wauchope from the king in 1321, and was
probably the Sir John de Lindsay who fell on the Scottish
side at Neville's Cross in 1346. The twelfth Laird was
forfeited for Border slaughter in 1494, but parts of the
lands were regained, and his descendants remained
CLAN LINDSAY 189
Lairds of Wauchope till the end of the seventeenth
century.
But a chief seat of the Lindsays from an early date
appears to have been Crawford Castle in Upper Clydes-
dale. Tower Lindsay, which originally stood on the site,
was the scene of one of the adventures of William Wallace,
who, according to Henry the Minstrel, stormed and took
it from its English garrison, killing fifty of them in the
assault. As the neighbouring lands took their name of
Crawford-John from their owner, John, stepson of Baldwin
de Biggar, in the reign of Malcolm IV., so the present
parish of Crawford got the name of Crawford-Lindsay
from its owners, William de Lindsay and his successors,
who held it for several centuries. It is interesting to note
that this William de Lindsay, the first known Lord of
Crawford, married Marjorie, sister of King William the
Lion. At a later day Robert de Pinkeney, grandson of
the heiress of the original line of Crawford, claimed the
Scottish throne as descendant and representative of Mar-
jorie. On the forfeiture of the Pinkeneys, the Barony of
Crawford was returned to the Lindsays, being conferred
by Bruce upon his adherent, Sir Alexander de Lindsay
of Luffness, a collateral descendant of William, first Lord
of Crawford above referred to.
Another royal alliance of that time was the marriage
of Sir William de Lindsay of Lamberton, also a descend-
ant of William of Crawford, to Ada, eldest surviving
sister of King John Baliol. This family, the Lindsays of
Lamberton, was for a time by far the most important of
the name, so far as property was concerned. It inherited,
through an heiress, vast possessions in Lancashire, West-
morland, Cumberland, and Yorkshire, in addition to the
" Baronia de Lindesay infra Berwick." It ended with
Christiania, whose husband Ingelram succeeded as Sire
de Coucy. Her grandson married Isabella, daughter of
King Edward III., and was created Earl of Bedford. On
the death of his eldest daughter Philippa, the Lindsay
property escheated to the Crown. His younger daughter
succeeded to Coucy, from which house a great number of
notable families descend, including that of Henry IV.,
King of France.
During those centuries the Lindsays of Upper Clydes-
dale had to hold their own by the power of the sword
against the frequent raids of the Douglases from Lower
Clydesdale and the Johnstones and Jardines in Annandale.
In token of the fact, till a recent time were to be seen the
stone vaults which formerly served the farmers of Craw-
190 CLAN LINDSAY
ford Moor for secure defence, while several of the hills in
the neighbourhood, which were the stations of scouts
and beacon fires, are still known as Watches. Other
interesting memorials of those early times are the small
holdings which still exist on the estate. These are of six
acres each, and formerly had a share also in certain hill
grazings. They were among the earliest of the small-
holding experiments in Scotland, others being the king's
kindly tenancies founded by Robert the Bruce at Loch-
maben, the lands held since the battle of Bannockburn
by the freemen of Prestwick and Newton-Ayr, and certain
settlements near Kilmaurs.
Among the most famous of the deeds of those early
Lyndsays of Crawford was the part played by Sir James
Lyndsay at the battle of Otterburn in 1388. When the
Scottish knights drove back the English to the spot where
the brave young Earl of Douglas had fallen, it was he
who knelt and asked the stricken knight how he fared,
and received the memorable answer — " Dying in my
armour, as my fathers have done, thank God ! ' And it
was he who, at Douglas's command, again raised the
banner of the Bloody Heart, and led the Scots to victory.
This doughty warrior himself died unmarried. His
mother was Egidia, sister of King Robert II.
Already, however, the Lyndsays also held broad lands
in the North. While the father of the knight just men-
tioned had married the king's sister, that father's brother,
Sir Alexander Lyndsay, had married the heiress of
Glenesk and Edzell. This Sir Alexander of Glenesk
himself became ancestor of the senior line of the family,
but in 1365 he resigned to his youngest brother, Sir
William Lindsay, the Haddingtonshire barony of the
Byres, and it is from that youngest brother that the famous
line of the Lindsays of the Byres and the Earls of Lindsay
of the present day are descended.
It was Sir Alexander Lindsay of Glenesk who, during
John of Gaunt's invasion of Scotland, attacked and put
to the sword the crew of one of the English ships which
had landed above Queen's Ferry, and his son, Sir David,
was one of the most famous knights of his time. It was
he who rode the famous course at the tournament at
London Bridge in May, 1390. John, Lord Welles, the
English ambassador, we are told, had at a solemn banquet
ended a discussion of doughty deeds with the declaration :
" Let words have no place; if you know not the chivalry
and valiant deeds of Englishmen, appoint me a day and
place where you list and you shall have experience." Sir
CLAN LINDSAY 191
David Lindsay accepted the challenge, and Lord Welles
appointed London Bridge as the place of trial. At the
first course, though Lord Welles' spear was broken on
his helmet, Lindsay kept his seat, at which the crowd
cried out that, contrary to the laws of arms, he was bound
to his saddle. Upon this he dismounted, mounted again
without help, and in the third course threw his opponent
to the ground. Another of Sir David Lindsay's exploits,
which ended less happily, was the encounter with the
Highland marauders under Duncan Stewart, son of the
Wolf of Badenoch, at Gasklune, in which many of the
gentry of Angus were slain and Sir David himself was
grievously wounded, and narrowly escaped. Sir David
married Elizabeth, daughter of King Robert III., and '*n
1398 was raised to the peerage as Earl of Crawford.
At this period a daughter of the Lindsays came near
to becoming a Queen of Scotland. A daughter of Sir
William Lindsay of Rossie was wooed, won, and forsaken
by the Duke of Rothesay, eldest son of Robert III., and
it was in anger for this treatment of his daughter that
Lindsay himself took part in the plot which sent the
dissolute young prince to die by starvation at Falkland.
It was the great-grandson of the hero of the London
Tournament who was known as the " Tiger " Earl of
Crawford, or " Earl Beardie." While his father was
still alive the Tiger had been innocently chosen chief
justiciar by the monks of Arbroath, but, discovering him
to be too expensive a protector, they had transferred the
office to Ogilvie of Inverquharity. Burning at the insult,
Lindsay raised his men and marched to attack the
Ogilvies at the Abbey. As the battle was about to begin,
his father, the old third Earl of Crawford, whose wife
was an Ogilvie, came galloping between as a peacemaker,
and was mortally wounded by a soldier who did not know
his rank. Infuriated by the loss, the Lindsays attacked
savagely, cut the Ogilvies to pieces, and afterwards utterly
burned and ravaged their lands. The Tiger Earl had
married Elizabeth Dunbar of the house of March, and the
ruthless degradation of that house by James I. made him
a bitter enemy of the Stewart kings. It was through this
that Earl Beardie made a bond with the great Earl of
Douglas and the Earl of Ross that they should take each
other's part in every quarrel and against every man, the
king himself not excepted. Douglas could rival the king
with his army in the south of Scotland, Ross had almost
royal authority in the north, and the Tiger Earl was
supreme in Angus, Perth, and Kincardine, The league
192 CLAN LINDSAY
threatened the throne itself, and James II. only managed
to break it by slaying Douglas with his own hand in
Stirling Castle. The second signer of the bond, John,
Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, was also finally
crushed, and ended his days as an old man, penniless, in
a common lodging-house in Dundee. The house of Lind-
say was more fortunate. To begin with, the Tiger was
encountered and defeated by the king's forces under the
Earl of Huntly near Brechin, and on both sides the
country was ferociously wasted and burned; but presently
Crawford appeared before the king in beggar's weeds,
with feet and head bare, and implored and obtained for-
giveness. James fulfilled his vow to make the highest
stone the lowest of the Earl's Castle of Finhaven, by
going to the top of a turret and throwing to the ground
a pebble which he found on the battlement there. The
Tiger Earl died six months later. One of the notable
memories of Dundee is the marriage, in the family
mansion of the Earls of Crawford in Nethergate, of Maud,
the daughter of the Tiger Earl, to Archibald Bell the Cat,
Earl of Angus. Among others of the name who made a
notable figure at the time was James Lindsay, Provost of
Lincluden, who was made Keeper of the Privy Seal after
the death of James II.
David, fifth Earl of Crawford, eldest son of the Tiger
Earl, represented James III. at the betrothal of the infant
prince, afterwards James IV., to the infant Princess
Cecilia, daughter of Edward IV. of England, in 1473,
and was made Duke of Montrose by James III. in May
1488, being the first, outside the blood royal, to be raised
to that rank in Scotland. He led his vassals and fought
along with his relative, Lord Lindsay, at the head of the
cavalry of Fife and Angus on the side of James when that
monarch fell at the battle of Sauchieburn. It was he who
finally transferred the chief landed interest of the family
from Lanarkshire to the East of Scotland, exchanging the
Crawford estates in Clydesdale with the Earl of Angus,
now head of the house of Douglas, for certain lands in
Angus. At the same time, as titles were attached to
lands, Crawford reserved a small portion of the Barony of
Crawford, and a mound near Crawford Castle, supposed
to have been the seat of the old Barony Court, is pointed
out as still belonging to the family. The Duke married a
daughter of the first Lord Hamilton, founder of another
great house that had risen on the downfall of the Black
Douglas, and with these powerful allies he managed to
keep his footing.
CLAN LINDSAY 193
At Flodden the Earl of Crawford led part of the van-
guard of the Scottish host, and fell with James IV. and
the flower of the Scottish nobles. During the time of
confusion after the king's death, the new Earl of Crawford
was appointed Chief Justiciar of Scotland north of the
Forth under the regency of Queen Margaret, and he was
one of those who helped the queen-mother when she
carried the boy-king, James V., from Stirling to Edin-
burgh, and declared him of age and the regency of Albany
at an end. James V. was then only twelve years old. At
a later day he found it necessary to visit his displeasure
upon Crawford, whom he deprived of the greater part of
his estates.
Ten years later, in 1541, there occurred in the family
an incident which might have proved still more disastrous.
David, eighth Earl of Crawford, was seized by his sons,
Alexander, Master of Crawford, and his brother John,
who threw him fettered into prison. Indignant at the
outrage the Earl disinherited the two young men, who
were outlawed as guilty of " constructive parricide."
Then, with the approval of the Crown, he settled his
honours and estates on his cousin and next male heir, Sir
David Lindsay of Edzell and Glenesk. Sir David accord-
ingly became ninth Earl of Crawford, but at his death
he was magnanimous enough to restore the earldom to
the son of the " Wicked Master" of Crawford, with a
provision that if the heirs male of the body of this David
Lindsay should fail, the earldom should return to the heirs
male of Edzell. Through this provision, upon the death
of Ludovic, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, the honours
should have vested in the descendants of Edzell. They
actually did so in 1848, following the failure of the line
of Crawford-Lindsay.
Meanwhile the Earls of Crawford continued to play a
part in the most notable events of Scottish history. At
the banquet which followed the marriage of Queen Mary
and Darnley, while the Earl of Atholl acted as sewer and
the Earl of Morton as carver, the Earl of Crawford was
cupbearer; and after the fall of the Queen at Langside,
the Earl of Crawford was among the Scottish nobles who
remained faithful to her cause. Eight years later, amid
the confusion which attended the overthrow of the Earl
of Morton's regency, the Chancellor, Lord Glamis, was
slain in a scuffle between his retinue and that of the Earl
of Crawford; but Crawford did not suffer, and in 1583,
when James VI. finally threw off the voke of tutelage,
after the raid of Ruthven, the Earl of Crawford was one
VOL. i. N
194 CLAN LINDSAY
of the principal nobles who helped him to do so. On the
other hand, in 1589, after the discomfiture of the Spanish
Armada, when the Scottish Catholic lords threatened to
overthrow the Protestant government, the Earl of Craw-
ford was one of the chief movers, but though he was tried
and convicted of high treason, and the leaders of the Kirk
clamoured for his death, he escaped with imprisonment.
Among the darkest deeds in the family history was the
barbarous murder by this twelfth Earl of Crawford, in
James VI. 's time, of his kinsman, Sir Walter Lindsay
of Balgavie. Lindsay was a Roman Catholic intriguer
after the Reformation. Forced to flee to Spain, he wrote
there an Account of the Catholic Religion in Scotland,
and, after returning to Scotland in 1598, took part in all
the feuds of the Lindsays, till he met his fate at the hands
of his Chief in 1605. Even Sir David Lindsay of Edzell,
however, whose effort to avenge him brought about the
death of Lord Spynie two years later, was a noted Lord of
Session and Privy Councillor, like his brother, Lord
Menmuir, and others of his house.
This line of Chiefs of the Lindsays came to an end at
the death of Ludovic, the sixteenth Earl, in 1652. Upon
this event, under the arrangement made by Sir David
Lindsay of Edzell, the ninth Earl, when restoring the
family honours to the son of the " Wicked Master " a
hundred years previous, the earldom should have reverted
to the Lindsays of Edzell. But in 1642 Earl Ludovic had
resigned his titles into the hands of King Charles L, and
received a new grant of them, with succession to John,
first Earl of Lindsay, and tenth Lord Lindsay of the
Byres. Two years later Ludovic, known as the " Loyal
Earl " from his support of Charles I., in which he took
part in the plot known as " The Incident," was forfeited
by the Scottish Parliament, but the act was premature,
and it was only at his death that the Earldom of Crawford
actually passed to the house of the Byres.
These Lindsays of the Byres were descended from Sir
William Lindsay, youngest son of Sir David Lindsay of
Crawford, who, as already mentioned, acquired the barony
of Byres from his elder brother in 1365. Sir William
was a famous knight, one of the " Enfants de Lindsay "
of the chronicler Froissart, and knighted the son of St.
Bridget of Sweden at the Holy Sepulchre. He increased
his estate by marrying the heiress of Sir William Mure
of Abercorn, and from his natural son, Andrew of Gar-
nylton, was descended the famous Sir David Lindsay of
the Mount, the famous poet and Lyon King of the time
CLAN LINDSAY 195
of King James V. By his poetry, it has been said, the
Lord Lyon " lashed vice into reformation," and his
portrait lives in the well-known lines of Sir Walter Scott :
He was a man of middle age
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on king's errand come,
But in the glances of his eye
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home —
The flash of that satiric rage
Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age
And broke the keys of Rome.
Still is his name of high account,
And still his verse hath charms,
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,
Lord Lyon King of Arms.
Meanwhile Sir William Lindsay's elder son, the second
Sir William of the Byres, married a daughter of Sir
William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, and with her got
the barony and castle of Dunnottar, on the Kincardine
coast, which he presently exchanged with the Keiths for
the barony of Struthers, now Crawford Priory in Fife,
on condition that in time of danger the heir of the Lind-
says should have refuge and protection at Dunnottar, a
stronghold then considered impregnable. The Fife estate
passed out of the family at the death of the heiress of the
twenty-second Earl, Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford, who
built the fine mansion which now adorns it.
Sir William's son, Sir John, was made a Lord of
Parliament as Lord Lyndsay of the Byres in 1445, and
it was his son, David, second Lord Lindsay of the Byres,
who, on the eve of the battle of Sauchieburn in 1488, gave
King James III. the " great grey horse " which should
carry him faster into battle or out of it than any in Scot-
land, and from the back of which the monarch was
presently thrown with such fatal consequences at Beaton's
Mill. Lord Lindsay himself brought to the battle a
thousand horse and three thousand foot, the strength of
Fife. The second lord was succeeded by his brother,
1 John, out with the Sword," and he again by his brother
Patrick. The last-named was in his youth a famous
" forspekar " or advocate, and the historian Pitscottie
tells how, when his brother David, the second Lord, was
put on trial after Sauchieburn, he came to the rescue. At
first the rough baron banned him when he trod on his
foot as a signal to avoid giving away his case in court.
196 CLAN LINDSAY
but afterwards, when the young advocate ^ obtained per-
mission to plead, and won Lord Lindsay's liberty, the
latter praised his skill and gave him the Mains of Kirk-
fother for his day's wage. At the same time James IV.,
angered by the young advocate's pleading, fulfilled his
threat to place him where he should not see his own feet
for a year, by imprisoning him in Rothesay Castle.
The fifth Lord Lindsay was one of the four nobles to
whom the charge of the infant Queen Mary was committed
in 1542, and Patrick, the sixth Lord, was the fierce
Reformer and Lord of the Congregation who took part
in the murder of Rizzio, challenged Bothwell to mortal
combat at Carberry Hill, and at Lochleven Castle forced
Queen Mary to give up her crown. The wife of this
ruffian was Euphemia Douglas, one of " the Seven Fair
Porches of Lochleven," and it was his grandson, the
tenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres, who was made Earl of
Lindsay by Charles I. in 1633, and inheritor of the Earl-
dom of Crawford by his Chief, Ludovic, the sixteenth
Earl, in 1642. He was one of the leaders of the Coven-
anting Party, was successively High Treasurer of Scotland
and President of the Scottish Parliament, and, taking
part in the Engagement for the rescue of Charles I., was
imprisoned by Cromwell in the Tower of London and in
Windsor Castle till the Restoration in 1660. His son
William, eighteenth Earl of Crawford, second Earl of
Lindsay, and eleventh Lord Lindsay of the Byres, an
ardent Presbyterian, last champion of the Covenant in
political life, is stvled by Wodrow the historian " the
great and good Earl " of Crawford, concurred in the Revo-
lution of 1688, and was appointed President of the Council
in the following year. His grandson, John, twentieth
Earl of Crawford, was first commander of the Black
Watch, then known as Lord Crawford-Lindsay's High-
landers. At the time of the Jacobite Rebellion he held
the Lowlands for the Government, while the Duke of
Cumberland operated in the north ; and after the battle of
Dettingen he was saluted by George II. with " Here
comes my champion." He was succeeded by his second
cousin, representative of a grandson of the first Earl of
Lindsay, who had been created Viscount Garnock in 1703.
And with the son of this holder of the family honours,
George, twentv-second Earl of Crawford, sixth Earl of
Lindsay, and fifteenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres, in 1808,
the Lindsay-Crawford line of earls came to an end.
The estates thereupon devolved upon the Earl's sister,
Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford, to pass at her death,
CLAN LINDSAY 197
unmarried, in 1833, to the Earl of Glasgow, as descendant
of the elder daughter of the first Viscount Garnock. At
the same time, a strange series of contests arose over the
succession to the various titles. Finally, by a report of
the House of Lords, it was found that the Earldom of
Lindsay had passed to the last of the Lindsays of Kirk-
fother, representative of the younger grandson of the
famous " forspekar " of James IV. 's time. This indi-
vidual was a sergeant in the Perthshire militia, and died
of brain fever acquired in studying to fit himself for his
high rank before his claim was proved. It was not till
1878, when other two earls de jure had passed away, that
the claim to be tenth Earl of Lindsay, ninth Viscount
Garnock, and nineteenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres was
established by Sir John Trotter Bethune Lindsay, Bart.,
of Kilconquhar, as direct representative of William,
younger son of the " forspekar," and it is this peer's son
who is now holder of these titles.
Meanwhile, on the death of the twenty-second Earl of
Crawford in 1808, a claim to be Chief of the Lindsays
and Earl of Crawford had been made by an Irish peasant,
which gave rise to one of the most notorious peerage cases
in Scottish history. As an upshot of the case, the claimant
was sent to Botany Bay, and though on his return he
renewed his attempt, the claim finally fell to the ground.
Previously, on the death of Ludovic, sixteenth Earl of
Crawford, in 1652, the actual Chiefship of the Lindsays,
which could not, like the title, be transferred by deed to
a junior branch, passed to George, third Lord Spynie,
grandson of Sir Alexander Lindsay, fourth son of the
tenth Earl of Crawford. The first Lord Spynie, who had
been made a peer of Parliament by King James VI., and
had been vice-chamberlain to the king, after being tried
and acquitted on a charge of harbouring the Earl of
Bothwell, was slain " by a pitiful mistake " in a brawl
in his own house in 1607, by Sir David Lindsay of Edzell,
eldest son of the ninth Earl of Crawford. In 1672,
George, third Lord Spynie, died without issue, and John
Lindsay of Edzell thereupon became Chief, as great-great-
grandson and lineal descendant of Sir David Lindsay,
eldest son of that Sir David Lindsay of Edzell who in
1542 became ninth Earl of Crawford by reason of the
misdeeds of " the Wicked Master," but afterwards
re-transferred the title to "the Wicked Master's" son.
John Lindsay made a claim to the Earldom of Crawford,
both upon the terms on which his ancestor the ninth Earl
had re-transferred the title, and upon the ground that he
198 CLAN LINDSAY
was next heir-male of the original creation, but he did
not succeed in upsetting the transference of the Earldom
by Earl Ludovic to the Earl of Lindsay. His own male
line ended in the person of his grandson in 1744, and the
Chiefship of the Lindsays then devolved upon the
descendant of John Lindsay, second son of the ninth
Earl.
This John Lindsay, Lord Menmuir, was a very eminent
lawyer who held several high State offices, and was one
of the eight Magnates Scotiae who were made Governors
of the Kingdom in the boyhood of James VI., and were
known as " Octavians." He acquired the estate of Bal-
carres in 1591. His second son, Sir David, who suc-
ceeded, was made Lord Lindsay of Balcarres in 1633, and
his son, again, was created Earl of Balcarres in 1661.
It was his widow who married the Covenanting Earl of
Argyll, and his daughter who in 1681 helped that Earl to
escape from Edinburgh Castle by taking him out as a
page holding up her train. Colin, the third Earl of
Balcarres was an ardent Jacobite, spent ten years in exile
after the Revolution, and, taking part in Mar's Rebellion
in 1715, only escaped by the friendship of the Duke of
Marlborough. It was his great-grandson, James, the
seventh Earl of Balcarres, who had his claim to the Earldom
of Crawford confirmed by the House of Lords in 1848, and
thus united again the ancient title and the Chiefship of
the Lindsay race.
The present Earl of Crawford is the twenty-seventh
Lindsay who has held the title. His grandfather, the
twenty-fifth Earl, was a noted traveller and collector of
books, author of The Lives of the Lindsays and other
works ; his father, the twenty-sixth Earl, was distinguished
as an astronomer, bibliophil, and philatelist; and he him-
self is the author of works on Donatello and Italian
sculpture. After a distinguished career at Oxford, he
was Member of Parliament for the Chorley Division of
Lancashire from 1895 till 1913, when he succeeded to the
title. He was a Junior Lord of the Treasury and Chief
Whip in the last Unionist Government, and is a Trustee
of the National Portrait Gallery and Honorary Secretary
of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
In the great war with the Central Powers, he showed his
patriotism by enlisting as a private in the R.A.M.C., and
acting as a stretcher-bearer at the front. He afterwards
held high office in the Government. While he holds the
premier Earldom of Scotland, it is probable that, if
precedence were determined by length of service in Par-
CLAN LINDSAY 199
liament, he would also be premier peer of the Empire,
for his predecessors and he have sat in every Parliament,
either Scottish or British, since 1 147.
Throughout the centuries the Lindsays have been
famous in many fields. Sir David Lyndsay, the Lyon
King and poet of the Reformation, has already been
mentioned. His fame is rivalled by that of Robert
Lindsay of Pitscottie, whose History of Scotland is one
of our most valuable national documents, and by that of
Lady Anne Lindsay, eldest daughter of the fifth Earl of
Balcarres, whose song, " Auld Robin Gray," is one of the
finest and most favourite of Scottish ballads. Among
famous Scottish divines, too, were David Lindsay,
minister of Leith, who accompanied James VI. to Denmark
to bring home his bride in 1589, and became Bishop of
Ross in 1600; Patrick Lyndsay, Archbishop of Glasgow,
who supported the Episcopal schemes of the same king,
and was deposed by the revolutionary General Assembly
of 1638 ; and David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, who
crowned Charles I. at Holyrood in 1633, and whose intro-
duction of the liturgy in St. Giles' Cathedral brought
about a tumult which directly helped towards the over-
throw of that monarch. Among more recent divines have
been William Lindsay, D.D., the United Presbyterian
professor and author, who died in 1866, and the late Rev.
Thomas M. Lindsay, LL.D., D.D., Principal of the
U.F. College, Glasgow, and historian of the Refor-
mation. And not less famous in yet another field was
James Bowman Lindsay, the Forfarshire weaver, elec-
trician, and philologist, whose patent of a wireless system
of telegraphy in 1854 foreshadowed and probably
suggested the successful Marconi system of the present
hour.
To-day the Clan Lindsay Society is one of the largest
and most influential of the bodies which perpetuate the
traditions of their name in the past, and utilise the spirit
of race and patriotism for benevolent purposes in the
present. A notable and popular member is Sir John
Lindsay, Town Clerk of Glasgow.
SBPTS OF CLAN LINDSAY
Crawford
Deuchar
BADGE : Conasg (ulex Europaeus) whin or furze.
SLOGAN : In the north, Druim-an-deur; in the south, Lesteric lowe !
LITTLE indeed is known of the Logans as a Highland
clan, but that little is tragic enough — so tragic as to have
brought about the change of the name Druim-na-clavan,
the height on which the stronghold of the chiefs was built,
to Druim-an-deur, the " Ridge of Tears." The estate,
now known as Druim-deur-fait, in Eilan-dhu, the Black
Isle, in Ross-shire, was still, in the middle of last century,
in possession of the representative of the family, Robert
Logan, a banker in London.
The word Logan, Laggan, or Logic, in the Celtic
tongue signifies a hollow place, plain, or meadow, encircled
by rising grounds. As a place-name it is common
throughout Scotland. Logie is the name of parishes in
Clackmannan and the north-east of Fife, while Logie-
Easter is a parish in Ross and Cromarty, Logan Water is
the old name of the Glencross Burn in the Pentlands, and
Port-Logan is a village in the south of Wigtonshire.
The original seat of the Logans in the north seems to
have been Druimanairig in Wester Ross. Early in the
fourteenth century, however, the original line of the chiefs
ended in an heiress, Colan Logan, who married Eachan
Beirach, a son of the Baron of Kintail, and carried the
estates into his possession. Eachan took his wife's name,
and, dying at Eddyrachillis about the year 1350, left a son,
Eanruig, from whom descended the Sliochd Harich, who
continued the race in the island of Harris.
But the chiefship could not pass through a female, and
the new head of the clan, having moved into Easter Ross,
settled at Druim-na-clavan, already mentioned, in the
Black Isle. This chief, known as Gilliegorm, the " Blue
Lad," from his dark complexion, was a famous fighting
man. He married a relative of Hugh Eraser, who at that
time had attained a footing in the Aird, and became
ancestor of the Lords Lovat. Between the two a dispute
arose, which Gilliegorm prepared to settle by force of
arms. Eraser, however, obtained the help of twenty-four
gentlemen of his name from the south, and with a
200
LOGAN
pacing page 200.
CLAN LOGAN 201
force, including the MacRaes in the district of Aird, and
others, marched to the attack. The two parties met on the
Muir above Kessock ferry, and there, in a bloody battle,
Gilliegorm and most of his men were slain.
It was as a result of this battle that the name of Druim-
na-clavan, the seat of the chief, was changed to Druim-an-
deur, the Druimdeurfait of the present day.
Among the plunder of Logan's lands which Fraser
carried off was the wife of Gilliegorm himself. She was
about to become a mother, and it was determined that if
the child proved a male it should be maimed or destroyed,
to prevent it revenging its father's death. The child,
which proved a boy, was, either by accident or intention,
a humpback, and from the fact received the name of
" Crotach." He was educated by the monks of Beauly,
became a priest, and travelling through the Highlands,
founded the churches of Kilmore in Skye and Kilichrinan
in Glenelg. Following the old fashion of the Culdee
clergy he married, and among several children, left one
known as Gillie Fhinan, the servant of St. Finan, whose
descendants are the MacGhillie Fhinans, Mac-' illie '-inans,
or MacLennans of the present day.
The separate line of the Logan chiefs was, however,
continued, and, though shorn of most of their consequence
by the battle at Kessock and the alienation of their original
possessions through Colan Logan the heiress, maintained
themselves in high respect by means of farming and
commercial pursuits to modern times.
It has been supposed that, like the Frasers, the
Chisholms, the Gordons, and other clans, the Logans of
Ross-shire were originally a branch of a family of the
same name in the south of Scotland. This seems the more
likely as the Highlanders were not in the habit of adopting
a place-name as a family designation, and Logan is
distinctly a place-name. If the conjecture be correct it
brings into relationship with the clan some highly interest-
ing personages of Scottish history.
According <x> Guillim, the writer on English heraldry,
the first of the name to obtain a footing in Scotland was
a certain John Logan of the house of Idbury in Oxford-
shire. On the defeat of the Scottish force under Edward
Bruce at Dundalk in Ireland in 1316, this individual, he
says, captured Sir Alan Stewart, who, by way of ransom,
gave him his daughter and certain lands in Scotland,
and from this union came the Logans of this country.
Unfortunately for this theory, however, there is docu-
mentary evidence of the existence of a family of the name
202 CLAN LOGAN
in Scotland a century and a half before that time.
Robertus de Logan appears frequently as a witness to
royal grants during the reign of William the Lion,
between 1165 and 1214.
Among the signatures to the Ragman Roll, the bond
of fealty exacted from the Scottish notables by Edward I.
in 1296, appear the names of Walter, Andrew, Thurbrand,
John, and Philip de Logan, and among those whose
doubtful allegiance the same monarch disposed of by
despatching them to his wars in Guienne was Alan Logan,
a knight, " manu et consilio promptus."
Also, ten years later, among the Scottish prisoners who
were hanged at Durham by the same crafty monarch in
presence of his son Edward of Carnarvon, was Dominus
Walter Logan.
During the reign of Robert the Bruce, the barony of
Restalrig, on which the town of Leith is built, passed by
marriage into possession of the Logans, and soon after-
wards occurred the most heroic episode which stands to
their name. Sir Robert and Sir Walter Logan were two
of the knights who accompanied the Good Sir James of
Douglas in his expedition to bury the heart of King
Robert the Bruce in the Holy Sepulchre. On the plain
of Granada, when the little body of Scottish knights
found itself hemmed round by Moorish spears, and
Douglas, throwing his master's heart far into the press,
rode after it and fell, Sir Walter and Sir Robert fell with
him.
During the reign of Bruce's son, David II., in 1164-5,
Henry Logan obtained a safe-conduct to pass with six
companions through England to Flanders and return;
and others of the name procured similar passports for
various purposes in the following years.
The great man of the family appears to have been Sir
Robert Logan of Restalrig, who, a few years after this,
married a daughter of King Robert II. by his second
wife, Euphemia Ross. He it was who in 1398 granted
to Edinburgh a charter giving liberty to enlarge and build
the harbour of Leith, with permission to the ships
frequenting it to lay their anchors and cables on his
ground. He also made over the ways and roads thither
through the barony of Restalrig "to be holden as freely
as any other ^King's street within the kingdom is holden
of the King." " And gif any of his successors quarrel
their libertyes, he obliges him and them in a penalty of
two hundred pound sterling to the Burgesses for dammadge
and skaith, and in a hundred pound sterling to the kirk
CLAN LOGAN 203
of St. Andreus, before the entry of the plea." Fifteen
years later he gave a further grant of land on which to
build a free quay. Still later, in 1430, probably feeling
age creep upon him, and the necessity of providing for a
future state, Sir Robert founded the preceptory of St.
Anthony, the ruin of which is still to be seen overlooking
Holyrood, on the steep side of Arthur's Seat.
Sir Robert was one of the great men of his time.
Besides Restalrig, he owned an estate in Berwickshire
with the wild sea eyrie of Fastcastle for its stronghold,
held the barony of Abernethy in Strathspey, and lands
in the counties of Ayr, Renfrew, Perth, and Aberdeen.
Some of the lairds of Restalrig were sheriffs of the
county and some provosts of Edinburgh, but in those times
it was no advantage to be the owner of property so near
to a great city as Restalrig was to Edinburgh. Encroach-
ments and quarrels took place between the retainers of the
Logans and the city burgesses; fighting even took place
on the streets of the capital ; and one of the lairds was
actually thrown into the Tolbooth on the charge of being
" a turbulent and implacable neighbour," who had put
certain indignities upon the townsmen. At length the
Cowrie conspiracy afforded the citizens an opportunity of
getting rid altogether of their restraining neighbour and
superior. Whether the Gowrie conspiracy was a plot of
the Earl of Gowrie against James VI., or of James VI.
against the Earl of Gowrie, remains to the present day a
debated question, but whatever were the facts the upshot
provided James with satisfaction for his old grudge against
Cowrie's father for the Raid of Ruthven, and with ample
forfeited estates wherewith to satisfy certain grasping
favourites. That strange and mad affair took place in the
year 1600. Sir Robert Logan, the laird of Restalrig of
the time, was a dissolute, extravagant, and desperate
character. In 1596 he had been forced to part with his
estate of Nether Gogar to Andrew Logan of Coalfield; in
1602 his lands of Fastcastle went to Archibald Douglas;
in 1604 his barony of Restalrig itself was disposed of to
Lord Balmerino; and in 1605 his lands of Quarrel-holes
were sold to another unknown purchaser. In 1606 he died.
Two years later one George Sprot, a notary public,
produced some letters from Logan to the Earl of Gowrie,
his brother Alexander Ruthven, and others, from which
it appeared that Logan had been deeply concerned in the
plot. The letters mention meetings of the conspirators
at Restalrig and Fastcastle, and suggest that the plan was
to convey the king by sea to the latter stronghold, where,
204 CLAN LOGAN
said Logan, " I have kept my Lord Bothwell in his
greatest extremities, say the king and his Council what
they would." On the strength of these letters Logan's
body was exhumed and brought into court to be tried for
treason. At the trial Sprot recanted from his first
testimony that the letters, which he said he had purloined,
were genuine, but on pressure being brought to bear, and
a promise made that his wife and family should be well
provided for, he returned to his first statement, whereupon,
to prevent further changes of mind, he was promptly
hanged. Regarding Logan the Lords of the Articles,
in view of the shady nature of the evidence, were inclined
to vote not guilty ; but the Earl of Dunbar, who was
to get most of the accused man's remaining estates,
" travelled so earnestly to overcome their hard opinions of
the process," that at last they declared themselves con-
vinced. Doom of forfeiture was accordingly pronounced.
This was accompanied, as in the case of Clan Gregor a
few years previously, by proscription of the name Logan
itself, and accordingly many families were thrown into
trouble and distress.
The name of Logan did not, however, any more than
that of MacGregor, disappear altogether from use.
Among noted personages of the name was James Logan,
who, as secretary, accompanied Penn to Pennsylvania in
1699, and rose through many legal offices to be governor
of the colony in 1736. The Rev. John Logan, author of
the tragedy of " Runnymead," disputes with Michael
Bruce the authorship of the exquisite " Ode to the
Cuckoo," and some of our finest Paraphrases. And
James Richardson Logan, editor of the Penang Gazette,
remains noted for his services to the struggling settle-
ment, and for his scientific contributions to the study of
the East. Logan of that ilk in Ayrshire, the last of his
house, has left a name for wit and eccentricity, though
the volume of drolleries published under the title of The
Laird of Logan can only in part be attributed to him.
MAC ALASTAIR
Facing page 204.
CLAN MACALASTAIR
BADGE : Fraoch gorm (erica vulgaris) common heath.
WHILE several of the Highland clans, like the MacGregors
and MacQuaries, could, by reason of their descent from
the Scots king Alpin, support their dignity with the
proud boast, " Royal is my race," there were others to
whom it was open to make an almost equal claim by
reason of their descent from the ancient princes and lords
of the Isles. Among those who could in this way claim
to be of the blood of the mighty Somerled were, first of
all, the MacDonalds and MacDougalls, and deriving from
them were lesser clans, like the Maclans of Glencoe and
the MacAlastairs of southern Argyllshire.
The MacAlastairs trace their descent in the famous
MS. of 1450, from the great-grandson of Somerled, Angus
Mor MacDonald, Lord of the Isles in the latter part of
the thirteenth century. Angus Mor had two sons,
Alexander, or Alastair, and Angus Og, and it is from the
former of these that the MacAlastairs take their patronymic.
Alexander of the Isles added considerably to his power
and territories by marriage with one of the daughters of
Ewen de Ergadia, otherwise John of Argyll. This
connection, however, brought him into serious trouble,
for his relation by marriage, Alexander of Argyll,
married the third daughter of John, the Red Comyn,
slain by Bruce in the church of the Minorites at Dumfries.
In consequence of that event Alexander of Argyll and his
son John of Lorn became Bruce's most bitter enemies.
They were naturally supported by Alexander or Alastair
of the Isles. Accordingly, after Bruce had finally defeated
John of Lorn at the Bridge of Awe, and captured Alexander
of Argyll in the stronghold of Dunstaffnage, he turned
his attention to crushing Alexander of the Isles. For this
purpose he had his galley drawn, like that of Magnus
Barefoot before him, across the isthmus at Tarbert, and
besieged the Island Lord in Castle Sweyn, his usual
residence. Alexander was forced to surrender, and was
forthwith imprisoned in Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire,
where he died. At the same time his possessions and
205
206 CLAN MACALASTAIR
lordship of the Isles were forfeited and given to his
younger brother Angus Og, whose support had been of
so much value to the warrior king, and who figures as the
hero of Sir Walter Scott's famous poem.
From their descent as legitimate heirs male of the
forfeited Alexander of the Isles, the MacAlastairs may
claim to be the actual representatives of the mighty
Somerled.
The principal seat of the MacAlastair chiefs in early
times was at Ard Phadruic on the south side of Loch
Tarbert. The nearest cadet of the house, MacAlastair of
Tarbert, was Constable of Tarbert Castle, the stronghold
built by Robert the Bruce himself after subduing
Alexander of the Isles, and, among other positions of
honour and power, the Stewardship of Kintyre was held
by Charles MacAlastair in the year 1481.
After the forfeiture, in the latter part of the fifteenth
century, of the later line of Lords of the Isles, which
inherited the turbulent blood of King Robert II. from a
daughter of that king, the MacAlastairs attached them-
selves for a time to the powerful tribe of the MacDonalds
known as Mac Ian Mhor, whose founder John the Great
had flourished in the year 1400. They soon, however,
attained the dignity of an independent clan. By this time
the seat of the chiefs was at Loup in the Cowal district
of Loch Fyne, and in 1587, when King James VI. passed
the Act known as the " General Band," or bond, making
the Highland chiefs responsible to the Crown for the
good behaviour of their clansmen and the people on their
lands, " the Laird of Loup " appears in the list as one of
those made accountable. This laird, Alastair MacAlastair,
died while his son Godfrey, or Gorrie MacAlastair, was
still a minor.
The great house of Argyll was then rising to the height
of its power, and doing its best by every sort of means to
increase its territories and the number of its vassals. It
was probably as a result of one of its schemes that in 1605,
all the chiefs of the Isles and West Highlands were
ordered to appear at Kilkerran, now known as Campbel-
town, in Kintyre, exhibit the titles to their lands, renew
allegiance to the Crown, and give securities for their loyal
behaviour. Lord Scone, Comptroller of Scotland, was
appointed Commissioner on the occasion. To enforce
compliance all the fencible men of the western counties
and burghs were ordered to assemble in arms at the
appointed place, and all boats were to be put in possession
of Lord Scone. In case of non-attendance, the Highland
_
:
—
_
:
-
-
en
3
^j
525
O
z
CLAN MACALASTAIR
207
chiefs were to be treated as rebels, and subjected to
forfeiture and military execution.
It can easily be seen how an order of this kind could
be turned to account by the House of Campbell. There
are traditions still extant in Campbeltown of a similar
requisition being made at a later day by the mother or wife
of one of the Dukes of Argyll, who professed to be of an
antiquarian taste which she wished to satisfy by a perusal
of the titles of the Kintyre lairds. Unwilling to disoblige
so great a dame, the lairds brought her their family
papers. In due course, by an " accident," these papers
were lost or destroyed, and as a result, the lairds had to
get new titles from the Duke, in which he duly appeared
as granter and feudal superior, while they, of course,
appeared as holding their lands of him as his vassals.
Only one family, it is said, escaped this misfortune. It
owed its escape to the shrewdness of a servant. This man,
doubting the good faith of the Duchess, disappeared with
his master's title deeds and other papers, and took care
not to return till all danger was past.
By one or other of these enterprises of the House of
Argyll the MacAlastair chiefs appear to have lost their
patrimony in Knapdale, and to have had their possessions
in Argyllshire confined to the lairdship of Loup.
In 1618 the Laird of Loup was one of twenty barons
and gentlemen of the shire who were made responsible
for the maintenance of order in the earldom during the
absence of Argyll. He was now the earl's vassal, and
accordingly when the Civil War broke out and the
Marquess of Montrose took arms for Charles I. in
Scotland, MacAlastair himself remained at home, though
many of his clansmen joined the Royalist forces.
The chief of that time married Margaret, daughter of
Campbell of Kilberry. A century and a half later, in 1792,
Charles MacAlastair of Loup married Janet Somerville,
heiress of Kennox in Ayrshire, and, in right of his wife, in
1805 added the name and arms of Somerville to his own.
From that time the familv was known as Somerville
MacAlastair of Loup and Kennox.
SEPT OP CLAN MACAI.ASTAIR
Alexander
CLAN MACARTHUR
: Garbhag afl t-sleibh (lycopodium selago) Fir club moss.
Also Lus mhic righ Bhreatainn (thymis syrpillum)
wild thyme.
SLOGAN : Eisa ! O Eisa !
WHILE many clans appear to have flourished and
immensely increased their power and possessions under
the early feudal system, there were others whose fortunes
were very different. Like a plant with a worm at the root
they wilted and did not thrive. In some cases, like that
of the Bissets, they seem to have been snuffed out by
some great feud or disaster ; in others they became chiefless,
broken men, without a common cause, and therefore
ineffectual in the page of history ; and in many instances
they subsided to the position of mere septs of another
clan. No more striking instance of contrasting fortunes
of this sort could perhaps be cited than that of the clans
MacArthur and Campbell. In their case the original
position and chiefship appear to have been exactly
reversed, the MacArthurs, who were originally the main
stem and chiefs of the clan, having become in course of
time something like a sept under the protection of their
younger offshoot.
In this connection the whole question of the origin of
Clan Campbell is discussed by Skene in his well-known
work on the Highlanders of Scotland. All students of
Highland history are aware of the theory according to
which the name of Campbell is made out to be originally
Norman-French, and the ancestor of the family to have
been one of the Norman notables who " came over with
the Conqueror." Against this theory Skene points out
that no such name as De Campo Bello appears in the Roll
of Battle Abbey, Domesday Book, or other record of that
time. This fact would not necessarily render the theory
of Norman descent untenable, but there is, further, the
evidence of the old Gaelic genealogies to show that the
family was originally understood to be of Celtic origin.
The old theory was similar to that of a Norman origin for
the Clan MacKenzie, which has been shown by actual
documents to be impossible. De Campo Bello, it is said,
acquired the first property of the Clan in Argyllshire by
208
CLAN MACARTHUR 209
marriage with the heiress of a certain Paul O'Duibne.
This, Skene points out, is the common form which family
tradition has taken in the Highlands in cases where the
chiefship has been usurped by the oldest cadet of the
family. He cites the oldest Gaelic genealogists to show
that the Campbells were descended in the male line from
this very family of O'Duibne, and in support of his state-
ment that the Campbells were originally a cadet branch,
he points out that the MacArthurs of Strachur, as " the
acknowledged descendant of the older house," have at all
times disputed the chiefship with the Argyll family. The
tradition of the MacArthurs is that the Campbells were an
offshoot of their house ; and an old saying in Argyllshire
runs, " There is nothing older, unless the hills, Mac-
Arthur, and the Devil."
At the first appearance of the race in history in the
reign of Alexander III. it is divided into two great
families, distinguished by the patronymics of MacArthur
and MacCailean Mor. MacCailean Mor, ancestor of the
Campbells of to-day, first appears on the historic page as
witness to the charter of erection of the Burgh of New-
burgh by Alexander III. in 1266. At that time he is
believed to have been Sheriff of Argyll, an office created
by Alexander II. in 1221. But till the reign of King
Robert the Bruce, according to Skene, the family possessed
no heritable property in Argyll. The MacArthurs, on the
contrary, were possessors of very extensive territory in the
old earldom of Garmoran, and were clearly, in power as
well as in seniority, at the head of the Clan. As early as
1275 Cheristine, only daughter of Alan MacRuarai,
granted a charter " Arthuro filio domini Arthuri Camp-
bell, militis, de terris de Mudewarde, Ariseg, et Mordower,
et insulis de Egge et Rumme." In the early years of the
following century MacArthur embraced the cause of King
Robert the Bruce, fought for him at Bannockburn, and
was rewarded handsomely out of the lands of the defeated
MacDougals. He was made Keeper of Dunstaffnage, and
granted a considerable part of Lome. To these posses-
sions his descendants added Strachur, in Cowal, on the
shore of Loch Fyne, as well as parts of Glenfalloch and
Glendochart.
It was in the days of Robert the Bruce that the Mac-
Arthur chiefs reached the climax of their fortunes, and it
is interesting, in view of later events, to enquire what was
their actual ancestry. Herein lies a point of much more
interest, with much better foundation of history to support
it, than may have been commonly supposed.
VOL. i. °
210 CLAN MACARTHUR
According to the legendary account of the Highland
clans in early Gaelic manuscripts, given by Skene in
Appendix VIII. of his Celtic Scotland, Cailean Mor, from
whom the modern chiefs of the Campbells take their
patronymic, and who is known to have been slain in the
famous pursuit on the Sraing of Lome, was the grandson
of Dugall Cambel or " Crooked Mouth," from whom came
the name of Campbell. Dugall's great-great-grandfather
was Duibne, whose daughter, according to the legend of
Norman descent from De Campo Bello, carried the chief-
ship to a family of that name; and Duibne was great-
grandson of Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, son of
Ambrosius. The Red Book of Argyll declares the
ancestor of the race to have been Smervie Mor, son of
King Arthur of the Round Table, and the statement is
supported by the fact that the badge of the clan is the
Lus mhic righ Bhreatainn — " the plant of the son of the
King of Britain," wild thyme.
Here we have a link which may well startle the student
of Highland history, an actual claim in early manuscripts
that the Clan Arthur and the Clan Campbell are descended
from the famous Arthur of British history, whose deeds
have formed the favourite subject of romancer and poet
almost from his own time till the present day. The claim
is, however, by no means so strange or so entirely unlikely
as it looks. Elsewhere in his Celtic Scotland Skene has
shown that the actual historic Arthur fought his battles,
not in the south of Wales, as modern readers of Tenny-
son, Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold are apt to suppose,
but in the Lowlands of Scotland and on the fringes of the
Highlands, on Loch Lomondside, and the northern district
of Northumberland. The pages of Nennius, the historian
of those early centuries, remain as undoubted evidence of
this fact. It can be easily shown how all subsequent
Arthurian literature has had Nennius for its original, and
also how the popular tales of the deeds of Arthur have
followed the Cymric, British, or Welsh language as it
ceased to be spoken in the Scottish Lowlands and early
princedom of Strathclyde, and came to have its chief seat
in Wales and Cornwall. The present writer has shown
elsewhere, from documentary evidence, that, as son of
Eugenius, or Owen ap Urien, King of Reged or the
Lennox, in the sixth century, St. Kentigern or Mungo,
the patron saint of Glasgow, was grand-nephew of this
historic Arthur, and the fact may be taken to show how
not at all unlikely is the claim of the ancient Gaelic manu-
scripts for an Arthurian origin of the Clan Arthur and
CLAN MAC ARTHUR 211
Clan Campbell. There are many enduring memorials of
the great King Arthur in Scotland, including some two
hundred place-names, from Arthur's Seat in Midlothian
to Ben Arthur in Argyll; but surely none of these is so
interesting as the memorial remaining in this name of the
ancient Highland clan which had its seat under the shadow
of Ben Arthur itself on the shore of Loch Fyne.
The causes which led to the decadence of Clan Arthur
and the ascendancy of Clan Campbell, though they are to
some extent obscure, might be well worth the pains of
the historic antiquary to trace. It has already been
mentioned that the MacArthur chief took arms in the cause
of King Robert the Bruce. So did the chief of the
Campbells, Sir Neil, grandson of the famous Cailean Mor,
from whom the later Campbell chiefs have all been known
as MacCailean Mor. Both of these chiefs earned the
gratitude of the king, and both were generously rewarded
with lands of Bruce's enemies. But Sir Neil Campbell
had another reward which was bound to bear still greater
fruit in years to come. This was the hand of a sister of
the Bruce, and there can be no question that the royal
relationship gave the Campbells a rise in influence which
nothing else could have done. To this marriage, indeed,
typical of many others by which the Campbells afterwards
advanced their fortunes and increased their estates, may
probably be ascribed the real foundation of the subsequent
greatness of that house. It was not very long afterwards
when the Campbell chiefs began to show the leadings of
their ambition. In the reign of Bruce's son, King
David II., MacCailean Mor made the f rst effort to secure
the chief ship of the clan. The attempt was resisted by
MacArthur, who procured a charter declaring that he held
his lands from no subject but from the king alone, and the
MacArthurs continued to maintain this position till the
time of James I., Bruce's great-great-grandson.
Down till the time of that king and even later, the
feudal dependence of the Highland chiefs upon the Crown
remained in many cases more nominal than real. The
Lords of the Isles, we know, still at intervals claimed to be
independent sovereigns. In the reign of James II. the
Lord of the Isles made an independent treaty as a sover-
eign prince with the King of England, and, in the
interests of the defeated Earl of Douglas, his lieutenant,
Donald Balloch, invaded and harried the shores of Clyde.
Later still, the MacGregors, with the proud boast " My
race is royal," declared that they would hold their lands
by no " sheepskin tenures," but by the strength of their
212 CLAN MACARTHUR
own right arm and the ancient coir a glaive or power of
the sword. It was to put an end to this ancient allodial
and irresponsible tenure, which constituted a grave danger
to the State, and to establish uniformly in its place the
system of feudal tenure under which each chief should
acknowledge that he held his territory from the Crown,
and should become answerable to the Crown for the
administration of law and for the defence of the realm,
that King James I. summoned his famous early parlia-
ment at Inverness. The Highland chiefs were called to
attend that Parliament, and among those who came was
John MacArthur, chief of the name. Bower, the con-
tinuator of Fordoun's Chronicle, describes MacArthur as
" a great chief among his own people, and leader of a
thousand men"; but MacArthur's hour had come.
Along with a considerable number of others whose
independence and turbulence the king considered a danger
to the State, MacArthur was seized, imprisoned, and
beheaded. All his property was forfeited to the Crown
excepting Strachur, and some of his lands in Perthshire,
and so great was the blow thus struck at the family fortunes
that the MacArthurs never again appeared as makers of
history in the North.
The act of King James I. effectually cleared the way
for the ambition of the house of MacCailean Mor, which
from that time remained in undisputed possession of the
honours of the chiefship of the race. Soon afterwards
their position was made still further secure by their being
raised to the rank of the nobility, and from century to
century, by means of advantageous marriages and shrewd
tactics, they continued to raise themselves in power and
influence. At the same time the MacArthurs sank to the
position of private gentlemen, and though they never
ceased to claim the honours of the chiefship, they never
found themselves in a position to make that claim effectual.
MacArthur of Strachur, last in the line of chiefship,
died unmarried about the middle of the nineteenth
century.
A number of MacArthurs remained for centuries about
Dunstaffnage, but where their chief had once been
hereditary keeper they had become merely tenants to the
Campbells. Among others of the race were the Mac-
Arthurs, who, from father to son, throughout a long line,
remained hereditary pipers to the MacDonalds of the
Isles. Several anecdotes of these MacArthur pipers are
recorded by Angus MacKay, piper to Queen Victoria, in
his work on Pibroch music. The last of the race, who was
CLAN MACARTHUR 218
for many years piper to the Highland Society, and a com-
poser of many pieces still held in high esteem, died about
the middle of last century in London.
It is sad to think that a clan which could boast descent
from so great and romantic a figure as the King Arthur of
British history should thus so completely melt and die
away from the proud ranks of Highland chiefship.
Inishail in Loch Awe is the recognised burying-place of
the clan.
SRPTS OF CLAN MACARTHUR
Arthur
MacCartair
MacCarter
CLAN MACAULAY
BADGE : Giuthas (pinus sylvestris) pine.
VERY considerable doubt exists as to the origin of the
MacAulay clan. The name itself might suggest descent
from a Norwegian source, as it might mean " Son of
Olaf," and the situation of the ancient stronghold of the
chiefs, Ardincaple, at the mouth of the Gareloch in Dun-
bartonshire, might be used to support this theory. A
similar sea-eyrie, Dunollie near Oban, on the Argyllshire
coast, is said to have been the " Fort of Olaf." Ardin-
caple is perhaps rather far up the Firth of Clyde to have
been a fastness of the bold Norse conquerors who built the
castles of Rothesay and Dunoon, but this fact in not con-
clusive against the suggestion. Another theory regarding
the origin of the name MacAulay — as of Dunollie — is that
it was derived from " ollamh," a physician. But what-
ever may be the resources of a Harley Street specialist at
the present day, it is extremely unlikely that a medicine-
man of the Highlands in the time of Somerled or Hakon,
or even Robert the Bruce, would be able to build himself
a stronghold like either Dunollie or Ardincaple.
The favourite tradition of the MacAulays themselves
is that they are a branch of Clan Alpin, and therefore kin
to the MacGregors. The only evidence in support of this
idea, however, is the action of MacAulay of Ardincaple
in 1591 and his descendant in 1694. In the former of these
years the chief signed a bond of manrent with MacGregor
of Glenstrae, in which he acknowledged himself a cadet
of the MacGregor family, and agreed to pay Glenstrae the
" calp," or tribute of cattle, in token of his superiority.
And a century later, in 1694, in a similar bond to Sir
Duncan Campbell of Auchinbriae, the MacAulay of that
time acknowledged the same descent from the House of
MacGregor.
It looks, however, as if rather much reliance had been
placed on these statements. The chief of 1694 seems
merely to have copied the statement of his predecessor of
1591, and there is considerable reason to believe that the
214
MAC AULAY
lacing page 214-
CLAN MACAULAY 215
earlier statement may have been made for other reasons
than mere zeal to elucidate a Highland genealogy. In
1591 the MacGregors were threatening to make things
more than uncomfortable for their neighbours on the
shores of Loch Lomond, Gareloch, and Loch Long. They
secured the alliance of MacFarlane of Arrochar, and
it was possibly only to protect himself from their
vengeance that MacAulay in 1591 found it prudent to sign
the bond of manrent. He escaped, at any rate, from the
fate which befell his neighbours, the Colquhouns. In
the following year the MacGregors and MacFarlanes
raided Colquhoun's lands, shut the chief up in his castle
of Bannachra, and, aided by Colquhoun's servant when
lighting his master up a stair, shot him dead through a
loophole. Eleven years later the MacGregors, in still
greater force, again raided the lands of Luss, defeated the
Colquhouns with great slaughter in Glenfruin, and
destroyed all the Colquhoun possessions.
From such attacks the bond of manrent saved Mac-
Aulay and his lands of Ardincaple on the other side of
the hill. The action of the Government of James VI.
which followed, seems to have recognised the fact that
MacAulay, in signing the bond of manrent with Mac-
Gregor, had merely done so under force majeure, for,
while MacGregor was executed and his clan proscribed,
Sir Aulay MacAulay of Ardincaple and his clan were
exempted from retribution.
For this exemption, according to Skene, MacAulay was
indebted to the protection of the Earl of Lennox. The
fact may be taken as evidence of a very different origin
of the clan. Joseph Irving in his History of Dunbarton-
shire, states that the surname of the family was originally
Ardincaple of that ilk. "A Celtic derivation," he says,
" may be claimed for this family, founded on the agree-
ment entered into between the chief of the clan Gregor and
Ardincaple in 1591, when they describe themselves as
originally descended from the same stock, ' M'Alpin of
auld ' ; but the theory most in harmony with the annals
of the house (of Ardincaple) fixes their descent from a
younger son of the second Alwyn, Earl of Lennox."
Alwyne or Aulay was a common Christian name in the
Lennox family. The second and third of the early race
of earls bore this name. The MacAulays, further,
repeatedly appear in the deeds in the Lennox chartulary,
and their relations with that house appear to have been
fairly personal and close. If, as seems likely, they were
really cadets of the Lennox family, they could claim
216 CLAN MACAULAY
kinship with James VI. himself, who was the actual head
of that house, and this would largely account for the fact
that they escaped prosecution after the battle of Glenfruin,
when their quondam allies, the MacGregors, were being
everywhere relentlessly hunted down.
Another clan proved by undeniable documentary
evidence to be descended from the Lennox family was
that of MacAulay's neighbours, the MacFarlanes, who in
similar fashion were coerced into an alliance by the Mac-
Gregors, and similarly escaped punishment after Glenfruin.
As if to show still more unmistakably that the state-
ment of kinship with the MacGregors inserted in the bond
of manrent of 1591, was no more than a convenient fiction,
Sir Aulay MacAulay, when the MacGregors were pro-
scribed for their evil deeds, was one of those who took up
their prosecution with most energy.
In view of all the facts it would seem that the tradition
attributing the origin of the house of Ardincaple to a
younger son of an Earl of Lennox, has the chief weight of
evidence on its side. In any case the family was of
consequence as early as the thirteenth century, for the
name of Maurice de Arncaple appears on the Ragman
Roll. Nisbet (vol. ii. appendix, p. 35) in his Historical
and Critical Remarks on the Ragman Roll, states that
MacAulay was not adopted as a surname till the time of
James V. Alexander de Ardincaple, son of Aulay de
Ardincaple, then adopted it as more suitable for the head
of a clan than the feudal designation previously borne, of
Ardincaple of that ilk.
Sir Aulay MacAulay, of the time of the battle of Glen-
fruin, died in December, 1617, and was succeeded by his
cousin-german Alexander. This chief's son, Walter, was
twice sheriff of Dunbarton. The sheriff's son, Aulay
MacAulay, though a member of the Episcopal Church,
was by no means a Jacobite, but on the contrary, at the
Revolution in 1689, raised a company of fencibles for the
cause of William and Mary.
It was with this chief that the decline of the family
began. He and his successors, as a result of their extrava-
gant habits, were forced to part with one possession after
another, till every acre of their once great territories was
gone. Aulay MacAulay, twelfth and last chief, sold his
roofless castle to John, fourth Duke of Argyll, and died
a poor man about 1767.
Meanwhile, early in the eighteenth century, forced to
migrate, probably, by the impoverished state of their chief,
a number of MacAulays settled in Caithness and Suther-
w
-
--
o
w
£
-
fc
O
I
CLAN MACAULAY 217
land, while others passed into Argyllshire, where some of
their descendants were afterwards known by the name of
MacPheideran. A number also migrated to Ireland,
where their chief owned the estate of Glenarm in Antrim.
Already, however, at an earlier date, another tribe of
emigrants from Garelochside had moved farther afield. It
was from this race that the chief distinction of the clan
was afterwards to come. Settling at Uig, in the south-
west of Lewis, they engaged in constant feuds with the
Morrisons of Ness at the north end of the island. In the
days of James VI., when the Fife Adventurers settled at
Stornoway, in the first of those attempts to bring prosperity
to the Lewis, of which the attempt of Lord Leverhulme is
the latest example, an outstanding part in the strife that
ensued was played by one of these MacAulays. This
individual, known as Donald Cam, from his blindness in
one eye, was renowned for his strength. His son, " the
Man " or Tacksman, of Brenish, has had his feats com-
memorated in many songs and tales. His son again,
Aulay MacAulay, was minister successively of Tiree and
Coll and of Harris. Of the minister's six sons, five were
educated for the ministry and one for the Bar. One of
these sons, Kenneth, minister of Ardnamurchan, wrote
the History of St. Kilda, praised by Dr. Johnson.
Another, the eldest, the Rev. John MacAulay, A.M., was
minister of Inveraray, where he encountered Dr. Johnson,
and afterwards of Cardross on the Clyde. He had three
distinguished sons. One became a general in the East
India Company's service. Another, known by his literary
works, was made vicar of Rothley by Thomas Babington,
M.P., who had married his sister. A third, Zachary,
became notable as a member of the Anti-Slavery Society,
under its auspices became Governor of Sierra Leone, and
had his efforts recognised by a monument in Westminster
Abbey. Zachary married Selina Mills, the daughter of a
Bristol bookseller, and their son was Thomas Babington,
Lord MacAulay, M.P. for Edinburgh, author of Lays of
Ancient Rome, The History of England, and some of the
most brilliant essays in the English language.
SEPTS OF CLAN MACAULAY
MacPhedrpn
MacPheidiran
CLAN MACBEAN
BADGE : Lus nam Braoileag (vaccineum vitis idaea) Red whortle-
berry.
PIBROCH : Mo Run Geal Og.
NOT much is known of the origin of the name and race of
the MacBeans. According to some the cognomen means
" the son of the Ben " or mountain; but such a name
would be applicable to many Highland tribes, and is not
specific enough to convey any distinctiveness. Had this
been the origin of the name there would almost certainly
have been some local or colour qualification added. But
no one has ever heard of a family called MacBean Dearg
or MacBean Vorlich. Dr. Almand MacBain, the well-
known Gaelic scholar, considers the race and name to be
the same as that of MacBeth. Both, he says, came
from Moray, a Badenoch branch was actually called
" Chlann 'Aoal-B heath," and the name MacBheathain
would formerly have been Mac-'ic-Bheatha, or MacBeth.
It seems much more likely, however, that the name took
its origin from the outstanding characteristic of an
ancestor. One of the Scottish Kings of the eleventh
century was known as Donald Ban, or Donald the Fair,
and the adjective is commonly enough, as a distinction,
attached to the name of clansmen at the present day,
a notable instance being that of Duncan Ban Mac-
Intyre the Gaelic poet. In the matter of race, the
MacBeans have been claimed as a sept of Clan Cameron,
chiefly by reason of the fact that some of them fought
under the banner of Lochiel at Culloden. But on that
occasion a still larger party fought in the ranks of the
Mackintoshes, and there is further reason to believe that
from very early times the clan regarded itself as a part of
Clan Chattan. The Kinrara MS. records several facts of
the time of King Robert the Bruce which make it certain
that at any rate one family of the name then recognised
Mackintosh as its chief. The first reference mentions how
in the time of Angus, the sixth Mackintosh chief " Bean
MacDomhnuil Mor lived in Lochaber and was a faithful
servant to Mackintosh against the Red Comyn, who
218
MAC BEAN
Facing page 2iS.
CLAN MACBEAN 219
possessed Inverlochy." Shortly afterwards the MS.
records how, " In the time of William, first of the name,
and seventh of Mackintosh, William Mhor MacBean Vic
Domhnuill-Mhor, and his four sons, Paul, Gillies,
William-Mhor, and Farquhar, after they had slain the
Red Corny n's steward at Inverlochie, came to Cosinage,
where Mackintosh then resided, and for themselves and
their posterity, took protection of him and his." The
same annalist refers to another incident which would seem
to show that, a century later, the MacBeans were regarded
as distinctly a sept of the same great confederacy. " No
tribe of Clan Chattan," the history relates, " suffered so
severely at Harlaw as Clan Vean."
Mr. A. M. Mackintosh in his History of the Mackin-
toshes and Clan Chattan quotes a number of charters and
bands which show that the MacBeans took an intimate
part in the affairs of the Mackintosh chiefs. In 1490
Donald MacPaul or Macphail (son of Paul) witnessed a
band between the lairds of Mackintosh and Kilravock, and
two years later Donald Macphail and Gillies Macphail
witnessed a contract between Ferquhard Mackintosh and
the Dunbars. This Gillies, Mr. Mackintosh identifies
with the Gillies M'Fal who appears in the Exchequer
Rolls as tenant of Dulleter in 1502-8, and his son as the
William MacGillies MacFaill who signed Clan Chattan 's
band in 1543.
So far the family were merely tenants of land. The
next head of the house, Paul M'William vie Gillies, who
in 1568 witnessed the infeftment of the sixteenth Mackin-
tosh Chief in Dunachton, is designated merely as "in
Kinchellye." Even in 1609, when the head of this house
was clearly recognised as chief of his race, he was still
only a tenant. In that year Angus MacPhail " in
Kinkell " signed the Band of Union, " taking the full
burden in and upon him of his kin and race of Clan Vean."
In 1610, however, Angus obtained a feu of his lands from
Campbell of Cawdor, and he duly appears as laird " of
Kinchyle " in the Valuation Roll of 1644.
Angus's son John was the first to bear clearly the
present family name. He received his sasine of the lands
of Kinchyle in 1651 as " John MacBean, alias M' Angus
vie Phaill, lawful son and nearest heir of Angus M' Phaill
vie William vie Gillies."
John's son and successor Paul took no part in Mac-
kintosh's feudal demonstration in Lochaber in 1667,
but in 1669 he atoned to the Captain of Clan Chattan by
giving him a regular bond of manrent in the ancient style,
220 CLAN MACBEAN
undertaking to " follow him as his chief, with all his men y
tenants, family, and followers of the Clan Vean, against . :
all men except only the King, Lord Huntly, and the Laird [
of Calder." Later, with two others, he undertook, for a
payment of blackmail, to protect the lands of Strathdearn,
Strathnairn, and adjoining districts against the depreda-
tions of cattle thieves.
Paul's son William, who was infefted in the family
estate in his father's lifetime, seems to have fallen into
money difficulties. In 1697 he and his father were put
to the horn ; in 1708 he had to grant sasine of his lands of
Kinchyle, Dores, Chapelton, Achnashangach, and others,
to Mackintosh of Borlum, on a bond for 8000 merks ; and
ten years later Mackintosh of Culclachy held a wadset over
Dores and Chapelton for ^"5000.
From these embarrassments the family seems never to
have recovered, and its difficulties were certainly not
lessened by the part taken by its chiefs in the Jacobue
risings of 1715 and 1745. -^neas or Angus MacBean,
William's eldest son, was a captain in Mackintosh's
regiment in the Earl of Mar's army, while the fifth son
John was a lieutenant. They shared the march into
England and surrender at Preston. ^Eneas is believed to
have been living in 1745, so that his brother, Gillies Mor,
who played a heroic part then, was not " of Kinchyle
as is generally stated. At the proving of his will he was
described as son to Kinchyle and late tacksman at Dun-
achton, domiciled at Dalmagerry. Among his property
was a copper still valued at seven pounds; in the " List of
Persons concerned in the Rebellion " he is described as
a " brewer "; and it has been conjectured that, his farm
at Dunachton having proved unsuccessful, he was the inn-
keeper at Dalmagerry.
Brewer or innkeeper, Major Gillies MacBean stands
out as one of the most valiant figures on the Culloden
battlefield. Six feet four and a half inches in height,
and armed with claymore and target, he was a formidable
figure. When the Argyll militia broke down a wall on
the right, which enabled the dragoons to attack the
flank of the Highland army, MacBean set himself at the
gap, and cut down man after man as they came through.
Thirteen in all, including Lord Robert Ker, had fallen
under his strokes, and when the enraged enemy closed
round him in numbers, he set his back to the wall and
proceeded to sell his life as dearly as possible. An Eng-
lish officer, struck by his heroism, called to the soldiers to
" save that brave man," but at that moment the heroic
CLAN MACBEAN 221
Major fell, his thigh bone broken, a dreadful sword cut
on his head, and his body pierced with many bayonet
wounds. His widow is said to have composed a pathetic
lament to his memory — Mo run geal oig, " My fair young
beloved." His fate was also enshrined in a set of verses
which appeared in a northern periodical and have been
attributed to Lord Byron. Three of the stanzas run;
Though thy cause was the cause of the injured and brave,
Though thy death was the hero's and glorious thy grave,
With thy dead foes around thee, piled high on the plain,
My sad heart bleeds o'er thee, my Gillies MacBain !
How the horse and the horsemen thy single hand slew !
But what could the mightiest single arm do ?
A hundred like thee might the battle regain;
But cold are thy hand and heart, Gillies MacBain!
With thy back to the wall and thy breast to the targe,
Full flashed thy claymore in the face of their charge;
The blood of their boldest that barren turf stain,
But alas ! thine is reddest there, Gillies MacBain !
Another member of the clan, of the same name, Gillies
MacBean of Free, formerly of Falie, also fought at
Culloden, but under the banner of Lochiel. He received
two bullets in ""his leg, but was able to leave the field.
Coming up with Lochiel, who had been wounded in both
ankles, and was being carried out of action by two near
relatives, MacBean undertook to convey him to a place of
safety whence he might easily get to his own country. On
crossing the Nairn at Craigie they were intercepted by
some of Cumberland's men. Compelled to fight, they
killed some of their opponents and the others made off.
At home the wife of Gillies dressed LochieFs wounds,
and with a pair of scissors extracted the bullets from her
husband's leg. MacBean lived to be an old man, and has
his virtues recorded in a Gaelic inscription in the church-
yard of Moy.
Still another gentleman of the clan, ^neas MacBean,
whose son was afterwards Secession minister at Inverness,
was pursued from the battlefield by two dragoons. His
path was barred by a torrent, and he was about to be
cut down when by a tremendous effort he leaped across.
The dragoons followed, but the fugitive making a circuit,
again leapt the chasm, and with tremendous exertion he
repeated these tactics till his pursuers tired of the effort,
and gave it up. He also lived long afterwards to tell the
tale.
222 CLAN MACBEAN
Meanwhile Donald, the son of Major Gillies MacBean,
who also had taken part in the battle, and had escaped,
succeeded his uncle ^neas as Chieftain and Laird of
Kinchyle. Obtaining a commission in the first regiment
raised by the Hon. Simon Fraser in 1757, he proceeded
on service to North America. The trustees whom he left
in charge of his affairs, finding them hopelessly embar-
rassed, sold Kinchyle and the other family estates to
Simon Fraser, a Gibraltar merchant, who also purchased
the Mackintosh estate of Borlum. After the disbanding
of Fraser's Highlanders in 1763 MacBean became a
captain in Lord Drumlanrig's regiment, and retiring later,
lived in 1780 at Teary, near Forres.
It seems probable that the succession was carried on
by one of the kinsmen named as trustee by Donald Mac-
Bean when he went abroad. This Captain-Lieutenant
Forbes MacBean of 1757, seems to have been the grandson
of Paul MacBean of Kinchyle who infefted his son William
in his estates in 1689. The Captain-Lieutenant became
General Forbes MacBean, R.A., and according to Mr.
A. M. Mackintosh, the historian of Clan Chattan, the
representative, through three generations of distinguished
soldiers was, in 1903, Archibald MacBean, late captain
in the 37th Regiment.
The three most important cadets of Clan Vean were
the MacBeans of Faillie, of Tomatin, and of Drummond.
Of these branches the first and last no longer possess
their family lands. Only MacBean of Tomatin remains
a land-owner in the old country of his clan.
Still another branch of the race were the Bains or
Baynes of Tulloch in Ross-shire. About the time when
the Kinchyle family were being definitely recognised as
chieftains a fray occurred at a market in Ross-shire which
showed that the Bains of Tulloch were a family of con-
siderable position and esteem. At a market at Logieree
on the Conan on Candlemas Day, 1597, a brother of
Macleod of Raasay, swaggering about with a " tail " of
six or eight henchmen, not only refused to pay for certain
wares he had bought, but proceeded to assault the merchant
and his wife. Indignant at the outrage, Ian Bain, brother
of the Laird of Tulloch, remonstrated with the aggressor.
The latter answered scornfully, and from hot words the
dispute came to blows. Bain had only his foster-brother
to support him, but he slew Macleod and two of his men.
The Mackenzies then took the side of the Macleods, while
the Munros came into the fray to support Ian Bain. In
a running fight as far as Mulchaich several were slain
CLAN MACBEAN 228
on both sides, but Bain and his foster-brother escaped
unhurt, and took refuge with Lord Lovat at Beauly.
Lovat not only protected them, but sent his kinsman,
Fraser of Phopachie to represent their case at court, with
the result that Bain was assoilzied, while proceedings were
ordered to be taken against his opponents.
Holders of the name of Bain, MacBean, and MacVean
have long been outstanding in the municipal and business
life of Inverness. In the eighteenth century James Baine,
minister of Killearn and Paisley became minister of the
first Relief congregation in Edinburgh in 1766, and pub-
lished a history of modern church reformation. Of the
same period was Alexander MacBean, one of the six
amanuenses whom Dr. Samuel Johnson employed in the
compilation of his dictionary. And in our own day the
clan has been able to count such notable members as the
late Australian statesman Sir James MacBean, K.C.M.G.;
Alexander MacBain, the well-known antiquary, and man
of letters, editor of Reliquiae Celticce and other works;
and George Bain, author of the History of Nairnshire,
and The River Findhorn, and editor of The Nairnshire
Telegraph.
SEPTS OP CLAN MACBEAN
Bean MacBeath
MacBeth Macilvain
MacVean
CLAN MACCRIMMON
PIBROCH : Cogadh no Sith.
THE bagpipe as a musical instrument is common to many
nations in Europe and Asia. It was probably a natural,
though ingenious development of the simple reed instru-
ment blown directly from the lips. By interposing the
mechanical device of a large bag or wind reservoir between
the inlet pipe and the chanter or pipe containing the reed
and the finger-holes by which the sound was produced
and manipulated, the player would find he added
immensely to the volume of his music and to his own
powers of endurance. A still later and formidable
improvement was the addition of the drones. In no
country, however, has pipe-music been brought to such
perfection and used to such effect as in the Highlands of
Scotland. The original musical instrument of the Gael
was not the bagpipe but the clarsach, or portable harp.
The songs of Ossian and the later Celtic bards were sung
to the accompaniment of this sweet but rather feeble
instrument, which, by the way, was also common to many
primitive peoples, such as the Jews. Miriam, the sister
of Moses, danced before the Ark on a famous occasion to
the sound of the clarsach. The bagpipe was a compara-
tively recent introduction to Scotland. There is no word
of it in the story of King Robert the Bruce as told by
Barbour, or in the romantic narrative of Froissart or the
accounts of the battle of Harlaw a hundred years later.
Mr. Manson, in his History of the Scottish Bag-pipe, sets
its introduction about the first quarter of the fifteenth
century.
No musical instrument could have been better adapted
to the hills and glens and lochsides of the Scottish High-
lands, or to the methods of clan warfare, and it is
characteristic of pipe-music that many of the most famous
airs extant at the present hour had their origin in some
historic event like the triumph or defeat of a clan, the
death of a famous chief, or some other outstanding episode
of Highland history. No instrument is better adapted for
battle purposes. Even now, when the other bandsmen
224
MAC CRUIMIN
Facing page 221
CLAN MACCRIMMON 225
are sent to the rear, the piper of a Highland battalion goes
" over the top " with his company, and many a thrilling
and heroic tradition has been added in this way to the lore
of the mountain music within recent years.
Coeval with the coming to Scotland of the bagpipe
itself appears to have been the rise of the family which
more than any other raised pipe-playing to eminence as
an art, and added lustre to its practice by the excellence
of its performance and the charm of its compositions.
According to a very questionable tradition the first of the
race was an individual who studied at Cremona in Italy
and settled in Glenelg. At any rate, whatever their
origin, the MacCrimmons appear to have been the
hereditary pipers to the Chiefs of Macleod for something
like three hundred years. As the endowment of their
office they held the considerable estate of Boreraig, and
there to the present day is pointed out the residence,
Oiltigh, where they carried on a more or less regular
college or Academy of Music for the instruction of aspiring
pipers from all parts of the Highlands who flocked thither
in the hope of attaining the secret of their mastery and
something like their enduring fame. The family is be-
lieved to have held the office from a date early in the
sixteenth century, but the first of the name on record was
Ian Odhar, or Dun-coloured John, who flourished about
the year 1600. A genealogy of his descendants is given
in Hanson's Highland Bagpipe.
Countless stories are still told in the Highlands regard-
ing these MacCrimmon pipers. During the feuds between
the Macleods and the Mackenzies a brother of Donald
More MacCrimmon, son of Ian Odhar, and chief of the
name at that time, was slain by the Mackenzies in Kintail,
and Donald More himself experienced many thrilling
adventures and escapes in his effort to avenge him.
Among other exploits he set fire to eighteen houses in
Kintail, and brought the country about his ears. His
exploits came to an end with an episode not unworthy to
be set beside that of David, King of Judah, when he cut
a fragment from the skirt of the robe of his enemy Saul
in the Cave of Adullam. The Mackenzie Chief, hearing
that Donald was in his neighbourhood, had sent out his
son with a party of men to arrest him, and these men
happened to come to the very house where he lay con-
cealed. As they sat round the fire they barred his onlv
way of escape, and it seemed only a question of time till
one or other of them must discover him. The day, how-
ever, happened to be wet, and as they threw off their
VOL. i. p
226 CLAN MACCRIMMON
drenched plaids, the woman of the house, on the prete
of drying them, hung them across the room in such a wa
that MacCrimmon was able to pass behind them unper-
ceived, and make his escape. The day continued storm
and the Mackenzies remained telling tales round the fire.
That night, when the party lay asleep, he returned, and,
collecting their weapons, laid them across each other
beside the bed in which their leader slept. In the morn-
ing Mackenzie was startled to find the weapons there, but,
rightly judging whose daring hand had laid them by his
bed, and had spared his life when he might have taken
it, he arranged an interview with MacCrimmon, procured
his pardon, and sent him home to Skye unharmed.
This Donald More's son, Patrick More, was the author,
under very affecting circumstances of one of the finest
bagpipe airs. He was the father of eight grown-up sons,
all of whom together frequently accompanied him to kirk
and market. In a single year he had the grief to lose no
fewer than seven of them by death, and on recovering
somewhat from his grief he immortalised his loss by the
composition of the pathetic pibroch Cumhadh na Cloinne,
the " Lament for the Children.'-'
This same Patrick More MacCrimmon is himself com-
memorated in a well-known salute and in a lament for
him composed by his brother. Another famous compo-
sition of the MacCrimmons, Cogadh no Sith, " Peace 01
War," is commemorated as the motto of the clan undei
their crest.
At the time of the landing of Prince Charles Edward
in 1745 the chief of the MacCrimmons was Donald Ban
As piper he accompanied Macleod, who adhered to tht
Government, when with the Munros he marched upor
Aberdeen to seize Lord Lewis Gordon. The force, how-
ever, was attacked and routed at Inverurie, and Donalc
Ban was taken prisoner. Next morning, contrary tc
custom, there was no pipe-music at the Jacobite quarters
When Lord Lewis and his officers enquired the reason, r
they were told that, so long as MacCrimmon was a ;
prisoner there would be no pipes played. On hearing this :
Lord Lewis at once ordered that Donald Ban should be |
set free. Not long afterwards, however, MacCrimmon ?
met his fate. He was one of the party sent out by Lord ;
Loudon from Inverness to seize Prince Charles as he lay
unguarded at Moy Hall, the residence of the Mackintosh •
chief. The raid was turned into a rout bv the strategy f
of Lady Mackintosh and the courage of the blacksmith'
of Moy with two or three clansmen, and in the confusion
CLAN MACCRIMMON 227
and flight Donald Ban was slain. His death is com-
memorated in the affecting lament which goes by his
name, the finest of all bagpipe laments, Ha til mi tulidh,
We return no more."
Following the last Jacobite rising, the Act of Parlia-
ment of 1748, which abolished hereditary jurisdictions,
and the retaining of pipers and other followers by the
chiefs, sounded the knell of MacCrimmon's greatness.
The lands which they had held as an endowment of their
office were resumed by the Chiefs of Macleod. Deprived
of their independence and prestige they dwindled and
disappeared. On the departure of the last of them to
Greenock with the intention of emigrating to Canada, he
is said to have composed the touching lament, above re-
ferred to, Ha til, ha til, ha til, Mhic Chruimin, " No more,
no more, no more, MacCrimmon." He got no further
than Greenock, however, for the love of the home of his
fathers drew him back to Sk^e. This individual, Donald
Dubh, died in 1822 at the great age of 91.
Following the vogue set by the MacCrimmons, the
pipers of the Highland chiefs have attracted the attention
of every notable visitor to the Highlands. Dr. Samuel
Johnson was struck by the performance of the piper of
Maclean of Coll, and Sir Walter Scott in the journal of
his voyage to the Hebrides in 1814 describes with evident
appreciation the escort of Macleod of Macleod himself at
Dunvegan. " Return to the castle," he writes, " take
our luncheon, and go aboard at three, Macleod accom-
panying us in proper style with his piper. We take leave
of the castle, where we have been so kindly entertained,
with a salute of seven guns. The chief returns ashore,
with his piper playing ' The Macleods' Gathering,' heard
to advantage along the calm and placid loch, and dying
as it retreated from us."
In early times the piper was one of the principal mem-
bers of the " luchdtachd " or personal body-guard of ten
men who attended a chief. These men were as ready to
fight as to furnish other services, and there is in existence
a composition by the piper of Cluny Macpherson, In which
he regrets that he has not three arms so that he might
wield the sword while he played the clansmen to battle.
In more recent days the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, sons
of George III., each adopted the fashion of having a
household piper; and the Duke of Kent's daughter,
Queen Victoria, at Balmoral, followed the example of the
Highland lairds in the same manner. To-day there are
many societies and clubs in our cities for the preservation
228 CLAN MACCRIMMON
and practice of pipe-music, and few things could be more
impressive than the appearance, at civic banquets and the
banquets of the clan societies, of the pipers, splendidly
attired and marching with inimitable swing as they pla'
the appropriate point of war at the climax of the feast
The pipes, too, have made an immense sensation or
occasions such as the funeral of Professor Blackie, wher
they headed the cortege down the aisles of St. Giles
Cathedral with the heart-searching lament for " Th(
Flowers o' the Forest."
For a very large part of the effectiveness of pipe-music
and the vogue which has made it so inspiring a featun
of Highland life and manners the country is without doub
indebted to the famous race of the MacCrimmons,
hereditary pipers to the Chiefs of Macleod. These piper*
had a method peculiar to themselves, of writing down the
pipe-music in words. A collection of this was published
in 1828 by Captain Neil MacLeod of Gesto. Though t
the ordinary eye it looks like nonsense, it was read an<
played from as late as 1880 by the I^uke of Argyll's piper
Duncan Ross.
.
CLAN MACCOLL
BADGE : Fraoch gonn (erica yulgaris) common heath.
PIBROCH : Ceann na Drochaide moire.
THIS small clan, which was anciently settled on the shores
of Loch Fyne, is believed to have come of the great race
of the MacDonalds. The belief is supported by the fact
that the badge of the MacDonalds and the MacColls is
the same, a sprig of common heather. According to the
Gaelic manuscript of 1450 so largely quoted by W. F.
Skene in his Highlanders of Scotland, the MacDonalds
derived their earliest known origin from Colla Uais, an
Irish king of the fourth century. No doubt following
this tradition the great clan of the Isles was in early times
known alternatively as Clan Colla and Clan Cuin or
Conn, the latter name being derived from Constantine,
the father of Colla. Coll has accordingly always been a
favourite name among the MacDonalds. Among the
most notable holders of it was the lieutenant of the Great
Marquess of Montrose in the Civil Wars of Charles I.,
who was known as Colkitto, or Coll Ciotoch MacDonald.
Of this Left-handed Coll, as his name implies, many
stories are told. It was he who brought over the Irish
contingent, and acted as its leader throughout the Mar-
quess' campaign. On his way along the coast after
landing, he sent a piper to ascertain the defences of Dun-
trune castle on the shore of Loch Crinan. The piper not
only found the stronghold in a complete state of defence
but was himself made prisoner in one of the turrets. His
pipes, however, were left to him, and he seized the
opportunity to blow out the well-known tune " Shun the
Tower." Colkitto took the hint, and, leaving the piper
to his fate, marched off to join Montrose. Later, when
a prisoner, and about to be hanged from the mast of his
galley at Dunstaffnage, he begged that he might be buried
under the doorstep of the little chapel there, in order that
he might " exchange a snuff with the Captain of
Dunstaffnage in the grave."
Clan MacColl, however, dates from a much earlier
time than that of Colkitto. Previous to the time of the
battle of Glenfruin, in 1602, they appear to have been of
229
280 CLAN MACCOLL
some strength. But, like other small clans within the
reach" of the Campbells, they were liable to be used by
the somewhat unscrupulous chiefs of that powerful family
as instruments in the Campbell policy of aggression and
aggrandisement. By means which are not quite clear
they were, along with the Colquhouns and other clans,
induced to embroil themselves against the MacGregors.
On the other hand, the MacGregor chiefs, to meet the
forces which were secretly being accumulated and insti-
gated against them by the crafty Argyll and Glenurchy,
made an effort to secure support from other clans, like
the MacAulays and Macphersons. When matters came
to a climax, on the eve of the battle of Glenfruin, Alastair
MacGregor sent word hotfoot to Cluny Macpherson, who
sent off fifty picked warriors from Badenoch to his
support. These men, however, had marched no further
than Blair in Athol when they received word that the
MacGregors were victorious, having signally defeated the
Colquhouns and their allies in Glenfruin. They accord-
ingly turned back and marched for home. On the way,
as they crossed the wild Pass of Drumochter, the highest
point of the road between Athol and Badenoch, as luck
would have it they encountered the MacColls returning
from a foray in Ross or Sutherland, and driving a
creagh before them. Apart from their alliance with the
MacGregors the Macphersons had a quarrel of their own
with the MacColls, and they forthwith seized the oppor-
tunity to clear off all scores. The battle took place on
the shore of Loch Garry, and resulted in complete victory
for the Macphersons. While very few of Clan Vurich
were slain, the MacColls were almost entirely wiped out,
losing their chief and nearly all their fighting men.
One of the decimated clan, Angus Ban MacColl,
attracted special attention in the fight by his strength and
dexterity. He was encountered by one of the most valiant
of the Macphersons, and the two engaged in a mortal
combat. This desperate struggle of the two continued till
the MacColls were finally overcome and driven from the
field. Then, seeing the odds overwhelming against him,
Angus Ban fought his way, moving backwards, to a deep
chasm in the hillside, and leaping the abyss backwards
with astonishing agility effected his escape, none of his
pursuers being inclined to risk the leap even in the
ordinary way and with a run.
Regarding further deeds of the MacColls tradition is
silent. Whatever they were they were probably achieved
in conjunction with their powerful neighbours, the Camp-
CLAN MACCOLL 281
i bells, and in their case it may be hoped that the adage
was true, " Happy is the nation that has no history! "
A hundred years ago one of the clan, Evan MacColl,
introduced the name into another field by publishing a
volume of poems of considerable merit under the title of
" Clarsach nam Beann," or " The Mountain Harp."
Yet another member of the clan was Alexander McCaul,
D.D., who in 1821 was sent to Poland by the London
Society for Christianising the Jews, who, after his return
to London published a weekly journal, Old Paths, dealing
with Jewish ritual, became Principal of the Hebrew
College in 1840, and afterwards Professor of Hebrew and
Divinity in King's College, and a prebendary of St.
Paul's.
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES
BADGE : Fraoch gorm (erica vulgaris) common heath.
SLOGAN : Fraoch Eilean.
PIBROCH : Dhonuill Dhui' (1503) ; and Donald Balloch's March to
Inverlochy (1431).
A UNIQUE and important place in Scottish history, and
particularly in the history of the Hebrides and the south-
western Highlands, is occupied by the great figure of
Somerled of the Isles. " Somerledi," or summer sailors,
is said to have been the term applied to the Norwegian
adventurers, whose raids upon the coasts of this country
were usually made during the pleasanter months of the
year; but so far as history is concerned the name is that
of the great island lord who reigned as an independent
prince of the West and the Isles throughout the middle of
the twelfth century. It is generally asserted in the High-
land genealogies of to-day that Somerled was a Celtic
chief by whose efforts the Norsemen had been driven
from the mainland of Scotland, and who had wrested the
islands of the west from the Norwegian Olaf, King of
Man, before setting himself up as King of the Isles and
Lord of Argyll; but the facts of history make it appear
more likely that he was himself a Norseman, and we know
his wife was Effrica daughter of Olaf of Man. When the
High Steward, settled at Renfrew for the purpose by
David I. of Scotland, began to drive back the Norse
invaders who were then thrusting their settlements into
the higher reaches of the Firth of Clyde, his chief
opponent was this Somerled of the Isles. The climax of
the struggle between them was reached in 1164, when
Somerled landed a great force on the shores of Renfrew-
shire, and fought a pitched battle with the forces of the
High Steward near the headquarters of the latter at
Renfrew itself. In that battle Somerled fell, along with
Gillecolane, his son by his first marriage, and it seems
possible that the Barochan Cross, with its interesting and
appropriate sculptures, still standing near the scene of the
battle, forms a memorial of the event.
Somerled is said to have left a grandson, Somerled,
son of Gillecolane, who inherited Argyll but was defeated
232
and slain by Alexander II. in 1221, also three sons by his
second marriage, Dugald to whom he left Lome and
his more northern possessions and who became ancestor
of the MacDougalls of Lome, Reginald who obtained
Kintyre, Cowal, Isla, Arran, and Bute, and a third son
Angus, who obtained the great Lordship of Garmoran,
the actual bounds of which are not now certain. It is
from the younger son Reginald, that the MacDonalds of
the Isles and all the branches of the name are descended.
Reginald had two sons who between them, in the year
12 10, slew their uncle Angus, and possessed themselves
of his patrimony of Garmoran. The elder of the two,
Donald, succeeded his father in possession of Kintyre
and the outer Isles, and carried on the main line of the
race. The younger brother, Roderick, got Bute, Arran,
and Garmoran. It is probably he who figures in the
legend of Rothesay Castle enshrined in the ballad of
"The Bluidy Stair." We know at any rate that the
struggle for the possession of Bute and its stronghold went
on between the Stewarts and the descendants of Somerled
with varying fortunes till about the time of the battle of
Largs in 1263. The last of the line of Roderick or Ruari,
was Amy, the first wife of John, Chief of Clan Donald
and Lord of the Isles, of whom more presently.
Donald's son was known as Angus Mor, and his son
again as Angus Og. The latter took Bruce's side in the
War of Succession, and it is he who figures as the hero,
accordingly, in Sir Walter Scott's last great poem, The
Lord of the Isles. As a matter of history, recorded by
Archdeacon Barbour in his Bruce, Angus Og received and
sheltered Bruce in his stronghold of Dunaverty at the
south end of Kintyre, when the king was on his way south-
ward in 1306, to shelter in the Island of Rachryn. From
the chronicler's method of telling the tale it does not
appear as if Bruce felt himself perfectly safe while
enjoying that hospitality. In the following Spring,
however, it was with the help of Christina of the Isles
that Bruce organised his expedition for the return to
Scotland. The historian Tytler, quoting the chronicler
Fordoun, describes how a chief named Donald of the Isles
raised the men of Galloway against Bruce in 1308, and was
defeated and taken prisoner on the banks of the Dee on
29th June by the king's brother. But Fordoun seems to
have confounded the Islesman with some lieutenant of
MacDougal of Lome. As a result of his support of
Bruce, Angus Og received, as additions to his territories,
Morvern, Ardnamurchan . and Lochaber, which had
234 THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES
previously belonged to the MacDougals, but had been
forfeited because of that family's siding with the Corny ns
against the King.
John, Lord of the Isles, son of Angus Og, further
raised the power of his family by marrying his cousin,
Amie MacRuarie, heiress of the line of Roderick,
Reginald's younger son. By her he got Garmoran and
had two sons, Ranald and Godfrey. From the former
of these are descended the houses of Glengarry and
Clanranald, which to the present day put forward against
the MacDonalds of the Isles claims to the supreme chief-
ship of the great MacDonald Clan. John, Lord of the
Isles, however, appears to have repudiated or divorced his
first wife, Amie MacRuarie, and to have married, under
a dispensation dated 1350, Margaret, daughter of the
seventh High Steward, afterwards King Robert II. By
her he had three sons, Donald, John, and Alexander, and
by reason, it is believed, that they were the king's grand-
sons, the eldest of the three was preferred to the succession
to the Lordship of the Isles. At the same time, by way
of compensation, their mother's inheritance, comprising
the ancient lordship of Garmoran, was secured to the sons
of the first wife. Of the three sons by the second wife,
John became ancestor to the Earl of Antrim, and Alexander
to the MacDonalds of Keppoch.
Meanwhile the old Chief, John of the Isles, had again
and again shown his haughty spirit. In 1368 he refused
to attend the Scottish Parliament and submit to the laws
of the realm, and though he was forced to submit after-
wards in person to King David II. himself at Inverness,
this spirit was carried further by his successor. Almost
immediately the arbitrary setting aside of the sons of the
first marriage of John, Lord of the Isles, was to produce
results the horror of which Scotland has not yet forgotten.
Donald, the eldest son of the second marriage, who at
his father's death in 1380 became Lord of the Isles, married
Margaret, daughter of Euphemia, Countess of Ross, in
her own right. Margaret's brother, Alexander, Earl of
Ross, married a daughter of the Regent Duke of Albany
and died about the year 1406. As the only child of this
marriage, another Countess Euphemia, was a nun, the
Lord of the Isles proceeded to claim the Earldom of Ross
in right of his wife. The Duke of Albany, however,
secured from the nun-countess a resignation of the earldom
in favour of his second son, John, Earl of Buchan, and
rejected the claim of his nephew of the Isles. As a result,
in 1411 Donald allied himself with England, raised an
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES 285
army of ten thousand men, took possession of the disputed
earldom, and, marching southward with great rapidity,
destroying the country as he went, penetrated as far as
Inverury, less than twenty miles from Aberdeen. There
he was met by his cousin, Alexander, Earl of Mar, son of
the Wolf of Badenoch and nephew of Albany, at the head
of an army of Lowland gentlemen. Mar's army was much
smaller than that of the Island Lord, but it was infinitely
better armed and disciplined. The battle, fought on St.
James's Eve, 24th July, and remembered as Red Harlaw,
proved disastrous to both sides, but the Highland advance
was checked, Donald retired to his island fastnesses, and,
being followed up by Albany, was compelled at Loch Gilp
to relinquish the earldom and give up all claim to
independent sovereignty in the Isles.
Donald of the Isles died in 1420, but his son Alexander,
Lord of the Isles, by reason of the injustice which had
been done to his family, appears to have remained a
danger to the State. King James I., after the return from
his long captivity in England in 1424, called a meeting
of the Highland chiefs at Inverness, and arrested the most
dangerous and powerful of them. While some of them
were executed on the spot, others, including Alexander of
the Isles and his mother the Countess of Ross, were
thrown into prison. After a short confinement the Island
Lord, who was the King's cousin once removed, was set
free, but no sooner did he find himself once more in his
native territory than his fury at the insult he had received
burst forth, and, gathering the whole strength of Ross and
the Isles, he burst upon the country, greviously wasting
the Crown lands, and burning to the ground the royal
burgh of Inverness. The King, however, instantly raised
an army, marched into the Highlands, and encountered
the Lord of the Isles in Lochaber. As the battle began
Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron passed over to the side
of the king, and the island lord saw his army put to utter
rout. In the style of an independent prince he sent an
ambassador to sue for peace; but this presumption merely
incensed the monarch, who vigorously prosecuted the
campaign against him ; and presently, driven to desperate
straits, the chief was forced to throw himself upon the
royal mercy. Clad only in shirt and drawers, he appeared
suddenly before the king at the high altar in Holyrood
chapel. There, holding a naked sword by the point, he
fell upon his knees, and, delivering it to the king, implored
forgiveness. He was instantly committed to Tantallon
Castle, while his mother was imprisoned in the monastery
236 THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES
of Inch Colme in the Firth of Forth. Meanwhile his
kinsman, Donald Balloch, enraged at his chief's sub-
mission, gathered a fleet and army, descended upon
Lochaber, and at Inverlochy cut to pieces a royal army
under Alexander, Earl of Mar, and Alan Stewart, Earl of
Caithness, and carried off immense plunder. He fled to
Ireland, but was betrayed by a petty chief, who cut off
his head and sent it to King James.
After a year's imprisonment the Lord of the Isles and
his mother were restored to their liberty and possessions.
At that time Alexander of the Isles seems to have estab-
lished his character of loyalty to the Government, for
after the murder of James I. in 1437, he became Justiciary
of the Kingdom north of the Firth of Forth. His title as
Earl of Ross appears to have been fully recognised after
the death of his mother, and he thus held vast power on
the mainland of Scotland, as well as in the Isles. This
power was increased by his marriage with Elizabeth Seton,
sister of Alexander, first Earl of Huntly. The old desire
for independent sovereignty seems, however, to have
lingered in his mind, for in 1445 he joined in a secret
league with the Earls of Douglas and Crawford against
King James II. The rebellion which these three Earls
meditated could hardly have failed, owing to their immense
power in the north and south of Scotland, in overthrowing
the royal house, had it not been for the singular shrewd-
ness, energy, and determination of the young James II.
himself, backed by the ability of the Chancellor Crichton.
Alexander of the Isles died in May, 1449, at which time
his son John, destined to be last of the Lords of the Isles,
was no more than fifteen years of age. He, however,
inherited and carried on the treasonous league with the
Earls of Douglas and Crawford, and his disloyalty was
probably increased by the fact that he married a daughter
of Lord Livingstone, head of the house that so long kept
the boy King James II. prisoner and was finally so
suddenly and completely overwhelmed and destroyed by
him. The King, however, in 1451, felt himself strong
enough to do battle with his enemies, and the first
results of the treasonous league were the slaughter of
William, Earl of Douglas, by James's own hand in
Stirling Castle, and the overthrow of the Tiger Earl of
Crawford by the Earl of Huntly in a bloody battle near
Brechin. Amid the general upheaval the young Lord of
the Isles and Earl of Ross rushed to arms, and seized
the royal castles of Inverness, Urquhart, and Ruthven in
Badenoch; but his success was short-lived, being check-
BAROCHAN CROSS
ERECTED ON THE SCENE OF THE BATTLE or RENFRE,
WHERE SOMERLED FELL IN Ilt>4
Facing page 236.
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES 287
mated by the Earl of Huntly, whom the King made
Lieutenant-General of the kingdom in place of the Karl
of Douglas. James II. then sought to turn his enemirs
into friends. On the Tiger Earl of Crawford appearing
bare-headed and bare-footed before him, and imploring
pardon, he freely forgave him. On James, brother and
successor of the late Earl of Douglas, he bestowed the
hand of that Earl's child widow, the Fair Maid of
Galloway, greatest Scottish heiress of her time. And he
also took into favour the young Lord of the Isles, who was
his own distant kinsman. The Douglases, nevertheless,
were soon again in rebellion. Finally, on Carron Water,
forty thousand strong, they stood face to face with the
royal army, and it looked as if the pending battle should
decide whether James Stewart or James Douglas should
wear the crown. The Earl, however, showed a fatal hesita-
tion to attack. In consequence during the night his great
army melted away, not a hundred men remaining to him
in the morning, and Douglas himself became a fugitive
in England. Twenty years later, in a small incursion on
the Border, he surrendered to Kirkpatrick of Closeburn,
and he ended his days as a monk in the Fifeshire Abbey
of Lindores in 1488.
An almost similar fate befell the Lord of the Isles. In
the cause of the Earl of Douglas, who had fled to him after
the battle of Arkinholme, he got together a hundred galleys
and five thousand men, which, under his kinsman, a
second Donald Balloch, Lord of Isla,1 ravaged Inverkip,
Bute, Cowal, and Arran, and carried off 600 horse, 10,000
cattle and 1,000 sheep. Shortly afterwards, however,
Douglas was driven into exile, and his ally, the Earl of
Crawford, died. The Lord of the Isles then became
alarmed at the fate which might overtake himself, and
made a humble submission to the king. After some
hesitation, James relented so far as to allow the humbled
chief a period of probation in which he might show the
reality of his repentance by some notable exploit. To this
end the island lord brought a powerful body of his vassals
to assist the king at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460. But
at the opening of the siege the king was killed by the
bursting of a cannon, and, taking advantage of the
weakness of the Government, the Lord of the Isles was
soon in open rebellion again. In October, 1461, at his
castle of Artornish on the sound of Mull he, along with
1 Son of John of Isla, brother of Donald of the Isles. Through
his mother he inherited the Glens in Antrim.
238 THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES
Donald Balloch and his son John de Isla, entered into a
treaty with Edward IV. of England by which, in considera-
tion of an annual pension, he agreed to become a vassal
to the crown of England, and to help the English King
and James, Earl of Douglas, then in banishment, to subdue
the realm of Scotland. Following this treaty the Lord
of the Isles declared himself King of the Hebrides and
assembled an army which, under the command of his
natural son Angus and of Donald Balloch, seized
Inverness Castle, marched with fire and sword through
Atholl, stormed the Castle of Blair, and carried off the
Earl and Countess of Atholl to imprisonment in Islay.
But a fearful storm which sunk most of the war galleys
was taken by the leader, Angus, as an evidence of the
wrath o£ heaven for his violation of the chapel of St.
Bridget in which he had seized the Earl and Countess,
and he presently set free his prisoners, returned his
plunder, and with his principal leaders did bare-foot
penance at the desecrated shrine. Not long afterwards,
at a meeting of the clansmen north of Inverness to settle
some quarrel regarding the boundaries of his land, Angus
was murdered by his own harper, MacCaibhre, who cut
his throat with a long knife.
For his part in these transactions the Lord of the Isies
was attainted in 1475. In the following year he surrendered
and, being restored to his forfeited estates, resigned them
to the King. The Earldom of Ross was then annexed to
the Crown, James III. making one of his sons Duke of
Ross, while Kintyre and Knapdale were forfeited and
afterwards passed into possession of the Earl of Argyll.
The rest of MacDonald's estates were regranted to the
island lord, and he was made a lord of Parliament, with
remainder, failing lawful heirs, to his natural sons, Angus
Og and John, and their male issue. In 1493, however,
when King James IV. paid his great visit to the Western
Isles, it was to punish the great MacDonald Chief, who
had seen fit to defy the royal authority, or at least to
countenance his nephew Alexander of Lochalsh in doing
so, Lochalsh 's idea being to recover the Earldom of Ross
for his family. After ravaging the Black Isle, belonging
to Urquhart, King James' sheriff of Cromarty, Lochalsh
was overthrown by the Mackenzie Chief at the battle
of Blar na Pairc in Strathconan. Immediately, with
characteristic energy, James summoned John of the Isles
to stand his trial for treason. In a Parliament in Edin-
burgh he was stripped of all power, as a favour he
was allowed to retire to the abbey of Paisley, and
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES 289
according to the Treasurer's Accounts, he died at Dundee
in 1502-3.
This chief was in reality the last of the Celtic Lords of
the Isles; but his house was not to be crushed without a
struggle. His son Angus Og had married a daughter of
the first Earl of Argyll, head of the house which for over a
hundred years had been little by little ousting and sup-
planting the ancient race of Somerled. In order to further
his plan, Argyll kept the wife of Angus Og within his
power at his castle of Inchconnel in Loch Awe, and when
her son Donald Dhu was born he was kept a close prisoner
in that stronghold. During the long imprisonment of this
unfortunate chief the MacDonalds wasted their strength in
fierce feuds among themselves, Maclan of Ardnamurchan
slaying the whole race of John Mor of the Isles and
Kintyre except one Alexander, son of John Cattanach,
who in the end married his daughter.
Donald had been a prisoner for thirty years when the
encroachments of the Earl of Argyll became intolerable
to the Islesmen. Having obtained a commission as
Lieutenant, Argyll proceeded to expel the ancient pro-
prietors and their vassals, to annul the charters even of
recent years, and to grant the hereditary property of the
Islesman to his own followers. In their time of trouble
the thoughts of the Islesmen turned to Donald Dhu. A
small force, led by the Maclans of Glencoe, broke into the
dungeon on Inchconnel, freed the captive, and carried
him safely to the castle of Torquil MacLeod in the Lews.
The Islesmen then rose, burst into Badenoch with fire
and sword, burned Inverness, and threatened the whole
power of the Crown in the north. The entire military
force of the Kingdom was called out, while a naval
squadron under Sir Andrew Wood and Robert Barton
was sent to reduce the castles of the Island Chiefs; but
the rebellion was only put down when in 1506 James
himself led an army into the North. The Earl of Huntly
burned Torquil MacLeod's castle of Stornoway, and
Donald Dhu, who had so recently been freed from his life-
long imprisonment, only escaped to Ireland to die soon
afterwards.
Alexander, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, however,
had left two natural sons. Of these the elder was Celestine
of Lochalsh, and Celestine's grandson, Donald Gallda,
was the father of that Alexander of Lochalsh whose
rebellion in 1493 brought about the final downfall of his
uncle, John of the Isles. The Earl of Huntly was then
exercising great power in the western Highlands and
240 THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES
Hebrides, and as part of a scheme for counteracting this
his rival, the Earl of Moray, instigated Donald Gallda to
make a claim to the Lordship of the Isles. Huntly was
in possession of the Lews, and Sir John Campbell o
Cawdor, brother of the second Earl of Argyll, had obtainec
Islay, the chief ancient seat of the Lords of the Isles
Hoping they had found a leader against these invaders
MacLeod of the Lews and many of the gentry of the
Isles joined Donald Gallda. The force was met a
Ardnamurchan by Alexander, son of John Cattanach
above referred to, who at last saw a means of avenging
the overthrow of his house upon his father-in-law, Maclan
of Ardnamurchan. They came upon the latter at a place
called the Silver Craig, and there Maclan and his three
sons with a great number of his people were slain
Donald Gallda was thereupon declared MacDonald of the
Isles, and, according to the extract of the family chronicle
printed by Sir Walter Scott in the notes to his poem, al
the men of the Isles yielded to him. Had he lived anc
had heirs he might have renewed the fortunes of his house
for in September of that year the battle of Flodden was
fought, and the great nobles of Scotland had other things
to do than attend to risings in the distant Isles of the West
But Donald Gallda lived only for seven or eight weeks
after being declared Lord of the Isles, and died at
Carnaborg in Mull without issue.
The continuation of the line now fell to Hugh the
second natural son, or a son perhaps by a handfast
marriage, of Alexander of the Isles. His mother was a
daughter of the last lay abbot of Applecross, and it was
through her that Alexander of the Isles had acquired
Lochalsh and Loch Carron. In 1495 Hugh obtained
from his half-brother, John of the Isles, a charter
conveying to him, with other lands, the district of Sleat in
Skye, which remains the patrimony of his descendants to
the present day. He was succeeded in turn by his two sons,
John and Donald Balloch, the latter of whom was killed
in 1506 by an illegitimate brother, Archibald. Donald
Balloch's grandson, Donald Gorm, laid claim to the lord-
ship of the Isles, and in 1539, in support of his pretension,
laid siege to Eilandonan, the seat of the MacKenzie chief,
but was shot dead from the battlements. Donald Gorm's
great-grandson, still another Donald MacDonald, was in
1625 created a baronet of Nova Scotia by Charles I. His
patent contained a special clause of precedency, declaring
him to be second only to Gordon of Gordonstown, in
the order of Baronets. His son Sir James, the second
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES 241
baronet, joined the Marquess of Montrose in his fast and
furious campaign in favour of Charles I. in 1644. At the
same time it cannot be forgotten that it was Alastair
MacDonald, of the Earl of Antrim's family, who enabled
Montrose to begin his campaign, by bringing over 1,800
Irish troops. When Montrose was finally defeated at
Philiphaugh, the Marquess of Argyll, then at the head of
the Government, took the opportunity of dealing his old
family enemies a knockout blow, and sent a Covenanting
army to destroy the MacDonald stronghold of Dunaverty
and massacre the garrison, numbering 300.
Sir James MacDonald, notwithstanding the losses he
had suffered, sent a force to join the cause of Charles II.
when that young monarch, six year later, marched into
England to the battle of Worcester.
The third baronet married Lady Mary Douglas, second
daughter (and only child to leave issue) of the tenth Earl
of Morton, and the fourth baronet, joining the Earl of
Mar's rebellion in 1715, was attainted. It was in the time
of Sir Almond, the seventh Baronet, that the great rising
of the Clans under Prince Charles Edward occurred. In
this MacDonald of the Isles took no part, and at Culloden
those of the name were commanded by MacDonald of
Keppoch. On that occasion the MacDonalds considered
themselves affronted. According to tradition, for their
valour at Bannockburn they had been granted the honour
always to lead on the right of the Scottish army.
At Culloden this was refused. As a result the clan
did not join in the first charge, and its leader Keppoch
fell, crying " Have the children of my tribe forsaken
me? "
Sir James the eighth baronet was one of the greatest
scholars and mathematicians of his time, and it was his
brother, Sir Alexander MacDonald, who in 1776 was
raised to the Irish peerage with the title of Baron Mac-
Donald of Slate, County Antrim. The fact of the peerage
being Irish was probably accounted for in part by the
circumstance that for several centuries Lord MacDonald's
ancestors had owned the Glinns in County Antrim, as well
as their estates in the Hebrides. Lord MacDonald's wife
was the eldest daughter of Godfrey Bosville of Gunthwaite
in Yorkshire, and granddaughter maternally of Sir William
Wentworth, Bart., of Bretton, from which fact the Lords
MacDonald have since that time included Wentworth in
their names.
Lord MacDonald's second son, Godfrey, a Major-
General in the army, further assumed the name of Bosville,
VOL. I. 9
but dropped it when on his elder brother's death he
succeeded to the title as third Lord MacDonald.
A curious thing now seems to have happened
Godfrey, third Lord MacDonald, who was also eleventh
baronet, married on 5th December, 1803, Louisa Maria de
la Coast, a natural daughter of H.R.H. the Duke of
Gloucester, brother of George III., and had an eldest son,
Alexander William Robert, born in the year 1800. This
son assumed the name of Bosville by royal licence,
pursuant to the will of his uncle, William Bosville of
Thorpe and Gunthwaite, who made him his heir. On the
assumption, however, it would appear, that there was a
bar to his succeeding his father, the peerage was inherited
by Lord MacDonald's second son, Godfrey William
Wentworth MacDonald, whose grandson, Ronald Archi-
bald MacDonald, is the present and sixth baron. It was
not until 1910 that the grandson of Alexander William
Robert brought an action in the Court of Session. By
decree of that court on I4th June it was declared that
Alexander William Robert MacDonald had been the eldest
son of Sir Godfrey MacDonald, third baron and eleventh
baronet, and accordingly the rightful heir to the family
honours. His grandson is now therefore Sir Alexander
Wentworth MacDonald Bosville MacDonald, fourteenth
baronet. In bringing his action he declared that he made
no claim to the family peerage. He, however, is acknow-
ledged to be MacDonald of the Isles.
Such is the strange story of a great ancient race. On
the Island of Finlagan in Islay are still to be seen the relics
of barbaric state amid which the Lords of the Isles for
centuries were installed with regal ceremonies, and ruled
with regal power. That power has long since passed
away, but the blood of Somerled still runs in the veins of
these heirs of the great MacDonald name.
SEPTS OF CLAN MACDONALD (CLAN DONALD, NORTH AND SOUTH)
Beath Beaton
Bethune Colson
Connall Connell
Darroch Donald
Donaldson Donillson
Donnellson Drain
Galbraith Gilbride
Gorrie Gowan
Gowrie Hawthorn
Hewison Houstoun
Howison Hughson
Hutcheonson Hutcheson
THE MACDONALDS OF THE ISLES 243
Hutchinson
Isles
Kean
Kelly
Kinnell
MacBeth
MacBheath
MacCaishe
MacCash
MacCodrum
MacConnell
MacCooish
MacCuag
MacCuithein
MacDaniell
MacEachran
MacElfrish
MacGorrie
MacGoun
MacGown
MacHutchen
Maclan
Maciltiach
Macilrevie
Macilwraith
MacKellachie
MacKellpch
MacLairish
MacLardy
MacLaverty
MacMurchie
MacMurdoch
MacQuistan
MacRaith
MacRory
MacRurie
MacShannachan
MacSporran
MacWhannell
May
Murchison
Murdoson
O'May
O'Shaig
Purcell
Reoch
Rorison
Sorley
Train
Hutchison
Johnson
Kellie
Keene
Mac A* Challies
MacBeath
MacBride
MacCall
MacCeallaich
MacColl
MacCook
MacCrain
MacCuish
MacCutcheon
Macdrain
MacEachern
MacElheran
MacGorry
MacGowan
MacHugh
MacHutcheon
Macilreach
Macilleriach
Macilvride
Mac Kean
MacKellaig
MacKinnell
MacLardie
MacLarty
MacLeverty
MacMurdo
MacO'Shannaig
MacQuisten
MacRorie
MacRuer
MacRury
MacvSorley
MacSwan
Martin
Murchie
Murdoch
O 'Drain
O'Shannachan
O'Shannaig
Revie
Riach
Shannon
Sporran
Whannell
THE MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD
BADGE : Fraoch gorm (erica vulgaris) common heath.
SLOGAN : Dh'aindheoin co theiraidh e, In spite of all opposition.
PIBROCH : Failte Clann Raonuil, and the Cruinneachadh, or
Gathering, composed during the rising of 1715.
WHEN on 25th July, 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stewart,
on board the Doutelle, French sloop of war, containing
all his arms and treasure, stood in from the westward
towards the mainland of Scotland, it was for the country
of Clanranald that he directly set his course. Already, at
South Uist, which was one of the island possessions of the
chief, he had interviewed Macdonald of Boisdale, the
young Chief's uncle, and had proposed to him to engage
in his cause not only Clanranald himself, who was known
to be greatly guided by Boisdale's experience and sagacity,
but also MacLeod of MacLeod and Sir Alexander Mac-
Donald of the Isles. Boisdale had assured him that, seeing
he had not been able to bring with him the French troops,
arms, and money which the Scottish Jacobites had
stipulated for, it was absolutely certain that neither Sir
Alexander MacDonald nor the Laird of MacLeod would
take arms, and that he was himself determined to advise
his nephew Clanranald also to remain quiet. Charles,
however, undeterred by what had been told him, steered in
for Arisaig, to interview the young chief of Clanranald
himself.
He had sound reason in his own mind for doing this.
Thirty years earlier, in the Jacobite rising under the Earl
of Mar, the young Captain of Clanranald of that time
had been one of the most noted figures, and had sealed
his loyalty to the Stewart cause with his life at the battle
of Sheriffmuir. Nor, as the event proved, was Charles
now mistaken in directing his appeal. Entering the bay
of Loch nan Uamh, between Moidart and Arisaig, in the
very heart of the Clanranald country, he apprised the
young Chief of his arrival, and the latter at once came
on board, accompanied by his relative, MacDonald of
Kinlochmoidart and one or two others. Clanranald met
the Prince's appeal with the same objections as his uncle
had used, and if he had remained firm, there seems every
reason to believe that Charles would have accepted his
answer as conclusive, and would have retired from his
great adventure. Thus, one of the most romantic and
244
MAC DONALD OF CLAN RANALD
Facing page 244.
MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD 245
tragic episodes of Scottish history would never have taken
place. But, as the Prince pressed his argument, a young
brother of Kinlochmoidart, standing by, began to under-
stand before whom he stood, and to show signs of
impatience at the attitude taken by his Chief and his
brother. Charles, noticing this agitation, turned it to
striking use. Suddenly addressing the young Highlander
he exclaimed, " You at least, will not forsake me. " I,"
said the young Highlander, grasping his sword, " I will
follow you to the death, were there no other to strike a
blow in your cause." His enthusiasm fired the Chief, who
thereupon declared that, since the Prince was determined,
he would no longer withstand his pleasure. Charles then
landed, and was conducted to the House of Borodale, one
of Clanranald's followers, and the great enterprise was
begun which was to leave such a mark on the memories,
character, and poetry of Scotland.
Clanranald could at that time put between 700 and
800 men into the field, and his country was perhaps the
best suited of ajiy in Scotland for the beginning of so wild
and desperate an undertaking as that of the Jacobite
Prince. It has been called the Highlands of the High-
lands, and its wild mountain fastnesses were believed by
its inhabitants to be utterly inaccessible to any Lowland
forces till, after Culloden, much to the clansmen's surprise,
they were actually penetrated by the red soldiers of the
Butcher Duke of Cumberland. Here, on the south shore
of Loch-moidart itself, rose on a peninsula which becomes
an island at high water, the stronghold of Castle Tirim,
which for ages had been the seat of the Clanranald Chiefs ;
and perhaps nowhere were the old traditions of devotion
to the head of the clan more strongly held than among
these wild mountains and along the shores of these sternly
beautiful sea-lochs and islands of Clanranald's country.
While the part which Clanranald took in furthering
the project of Prince Charles Edward formed the mo.st
notable and far-reaching event in the history of this
branch of the great MacDonald clan, the MacDonalds of
Clanranald of course claim a common share with the
MacDonalds of the Isles and the MacDonalds of Glengarry
in the early history of the great MacDonald race. Along
with the houses of the Isles and of Glengarry they derive
their descent from the mighty Somerled, King of the Isles
in the twelfth century. From Donald, son of Somerled 's
second son, Reginald, they take their common name
of MacDonald, and from Donald's grandson, Angus
Og, they derived the right, by the part he took at the
246 MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD
battle of Bannockburn, of occupying the place of honour
on the right of the Scottish armies in the hour of battle.
They share also the memories of descent through Angus
Og's son, JorTn, first Lord of the Isles; but, while the
MacDonalds of the Isles are descended from John's second
wife, Margaret, daughter of King Robert II., the families
of Clanranald and Glengarry descend from Ranald, third
son of the Lord of the Isles by his first wife, Amie
Macruarie, heiress of the line of Roderick, second son of
Reginald of the Isles above referred to, whom John, Lord
of the Isles, married about the year 1337.
In the attempt made in 1491, by Alexander of Lochalsh,
nephew of John, fourth and last Lord of the Isles,
to recover the rich Earldom of Ross for his family — an
attempt which brought about the final ruin of his house —
Clanranald of Garmoran played a part, and along with
the other clans engaged, took Inverness, ravaged the Black
Isle and Strathconan, and were cut to pieces by the Mac-
kenzies at the battle of Blair na Park. But Clanranald
seems to have come out of the strife little harmed. Follow-
ing the downfall of the Lord of the Isles which followed,
Clanranald seems to have risen to importance, so as,
about 1530, to be acknowledged Chief of the name. This
may have come about by the action of the old Tanist law,
which entailed succession, not upon the eldest son, but
upon the eldest able male of a house, an arrangement
eminently useful in days when the succession of a minor
laid a clan or a kingdom open to all the distresses of attack
and plunder by unscrupulous neighbours.
Almost immediately upon attaining this climax in its
fortunes the house of Clanranald itself afforded an example
of the evils of a minority, and the advantages of a succes-
sion upon Tanist principles. Dougal, who became Chief
in 1513, the year of the battle of Flodden, proved himself
highly unacceptable to the chief men of the clan, who,
goaded at length by some of his acts of oppression and
cruelty, rose against him and put him to death. At the
same time they excluded his children from the chiefship,
and by common consent declared Alastair, his brother, to
be head of the clan. Alastair died in 1530, whereupon
John Moidartach of Eilean Tirim, his natural son, who
was afterward legitimised, showed sufficient address to
have himself recognised as Chief by the elders of the clan,
and to secure a title to the estates. The sons of Dougal
were still too young to dispute the chiefship, but Alastair's
father, Alan Macruarie, Chief of Clanranald from 1481 to
1509, had been married a second time, to a daughter of
MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD 247
Lord Lovat, and an only son by that marriage had been
brought up by the Fraser chief. This son Ranald, known
as Gallda or the Foreigner from the circumstances of his
upbringing, at first also made no attempt to dispute the
chiefship. But John Moidartach was of a restless dis-
position, able and daring, and his ambitious enterprises
by and by brought him into collision with the Government
of the country. In 1540 he was thrown into prison by
James V., and upon this happening, the Frasers took
the opportunity to seize the chiefship and estates of
Clanranald for their own kinsman, Ranald Gallda.
Gallda, however, had that worst of all faults in the
eyes of a Highlander : he was mean in disposition, and
though he had secured a revocation in his own favour,
of the titles which had been granted to John Moidartach,
the clansmen would not acknowledge him as their chief.
Matters came to a climax early in 1544, when John Moidar-
tach was released from prison. He returned to Arisaig,
and was received with great rejoicings by the clan, while
Ranald Gallda was compelled to flee, and seek refuge with
his mother's people, the Frasers.
By way of avenging the injury which had been done
him in his absence, John Moidartach gathered a force
consisting of his own men, with the MacDonalds of
Keppoch and the Camerons, and, marching northward,
carried fire and sword into the Fraser country as well as
into Glen Urquhart and Glen Moriston. So great was the
disturbance that the Earl of Huntly, the King's Lieutenant
in the north, found it necessary to take action, and with a
strong force, including the Frasers, the Grants, and the
Macintoshes, marched against Clanranald. The latter
retired before the King's Lieutenant, who, without fighting
a battle, replaced Ranald Gallda in possession of Moidart.
He then set about to return. In Glen Spean his forces
divided, Lord Lovat with 400 men, accompanied by Ranald
Gallda, marching northward along the shores of Loch-
lochy. As Lovat reached the head of Lochlochy,
however, he Suddenly saw the forces of John Moidartach
descending upon him on the front and flank in seven
columns with pipes playing and banners flying. A
desperate struggle at once began. It was a blazing day in
July. In their eagerness the combatants cast their
clothes, and from this circumstance the encounter is known
as Blar na leine, the Battle of the Shirts. The slaughter
was terrible on both sides, among those who fell being
Lord Lovat himself, his eldest son, and the unlucky
Ranald Gallda, while of the victorious side it is said there
248 MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD
were only eight survivors and on the side of the vanquished
only four. As a result, John Moidartach was firmly
established as Chief of Clanranald, the Earl of Huntly
taking no further action in the matter.
Moidartach was an extraordinary man, and many
traditions of his deeds were handed down among the
western clans. In the year after the battle of Blar na leine,
when Mary Queen of Scots was three years old, and
Henry VIII. of England was prosecuting his rough wooing
of her for his son, afterwards Edward VI., by means of
fire and sword on the Border and the expedition of the
Earl of Lennox to the Western Isles, John Moidartach
was one of the Council of the Isles which empowered two
commissioners to treat with the English King. For their
parts in this transaction, the Captain of Clan Cameron and
Ranald MacDonald of Keppoch, both of whom had taken
part at the battle of Blar na leine, were seized and
beheaded, but John Moidartach obtained a pardon in
1548. In the end John Moidartach managed to transmit
the chiefship to his own son, and as an evidence of his
greatness the clansmen for generations preserved his skull
with reverent regard in the chapel of lonain Island.
In the matter of feuds and raids the MacDonalds of
Clanranald were evidently no better than their neighbours.
In an Act of Parliament of 1594, in which a list is given
of " Wickit thevis and lymmaris " guilty of " barbarous
cruelties and daylie heirschippis," the name of the clan
appears along with those of Clan Chattan, Clan Cameron,
and others. Eight years later, in 1602, in two Acts of
Parliament, MacRanald appears among those ordered to
help the Queen of England in her Irish wars, and to
practise their weapons regularly at Weaponschaws.
Clanranald, however, was also noted for the more
enlightened interests of its chiefs. The family was famous
for retaining among its followers a race of bards and
sennachies. This family, the MacVuirichs, held a good
farm on condition of preserving the history of the clan
and the compositions of the great poets of the Gael. As
early as the battle of Harlaw in 1411 one of their poets,
Lachlan, poured forth, to animate the clan, a most stirring
composition, remarkable for its energy and amazing
alliteration. In the latter part of the eighteenth century,
Neil MacVourich, the bard and sennachy of Clanranald,
reckoned his descent through eighteen unbroken genera-
tions. Neil was entirely ignorant of English, but
treasured the possession of two collections of Gaelic
writings known respectively as the Red Book, and the
MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD 249
Black Book of Clanranald. When in 1760 James
MacPherson, the translator of Ossian, was searching the
Highlands for the remains of Gaelic poetry, one of these
books was lent him by command of Clanranald, and was
made much use of in the production of the translation.
To the present hour the dispute remains unsettled as
to who is the supreme Chief of the name of MacDonald
In the case of each of the three great claimants there arc
conflicting circumstances to be taken into account. The
day has gone by when the rival claimants to such an
honour felt impelled to prosecute their claim of precedence
with all the powers of the law and the sword. It is
possible, in view of the debate which took place lately in
the columns of a well-known West Highland newspaper
on the question as to whether the last Lord of the Isles
was actually forfeited by James IV., that the question may
come again to be of some living and real consequence.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to know how the three chiefs
— of the Isles, Glengarry, and Clanranald — have agreed
to keep their differences in amicable abeyance. After Sir
Alexander Bosville MacDonald, Bart., of the Isles, had
proved before the Court of Session his right to that title
and chiefship, a document was drawn out which is likely
to remain unique, and which may be reproduced with
interest here. This runs as follows :
" TO THE WHOLE KIN AND NAME OF CLAN DONALD.
" We, the undersigned, Angus Roderick MacDonald,
otherwise Mac Mhic Ailein, Chief and Captain of Clan
Ranald, Aeneas Ranald M'Donell, otherwise Mac Mhic
Alasdair, of Glengarry, and Sir Alexander Wentworth
MacDonald Bosville MacDonald, otherwise MacDhonuill
na'n Eilean, of Sleat, Knight Baronet, desire to certify
and make known by these present letters to the whole
kin and name of Clan Donald, and to all others whom
it may concern, that, after full consideration of the matters
after-mentioned and of the whole writs, evidents, and
other testimony now available, we have come to the
conclusions following, videlicet :
" FIRST :
" That following upon the forfeiture and death of John
Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, and the death without
issue in 1545 of his grandson, Donald Dubh, the various
branches of Clan Donald, of which the Lord of the Isles
was supreme and undisputed Chief, separated from and
became independent of one another.
250 MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD
" SECOND :
" That although claims to the supreme Chief ship of
the whole Clan Donald have been maintained by our
predecessors, and are still maintained by ourselves, there
is no evidence that the whole Clan has ever admitted or
decided in favour of any of the said claims.
" THIRD :
" That owing to the change of circumstances and the
dispersion throughout the world of so many of the kin
of Clan Donald, it is now impossible for the Clan to give
any decision on the matter.
" FOURTH :
" That as a result of these conflicting claims to the
supreme Chiefship there have been in the past great
jealousy and dissension among the different branches of
the Clan, and in particular among our houses of Clan
Ranald, Glengarry, and Sleat, whereby great injury and
prejudice have been suffered by our whole race and kin.
" THEREFORE :
" With the view of, S6 far as in us lies, putting an end
to such jealousy and dissension, and enabling the whole
kin of Clan Donald to join unreservedly in all under-
takings that may tend to the honour and advantage of
our name.
" We, as the Chiefs of our several houses, have agreed
and hereby agree as follows, videlicet :
" FIRST :
" While no one of us in any way abandons his claim
to the supreme Chiefship of the whole race of Clan Donald
as justly belonging to him by virtue of his descent, We
all and each of us agree to cease from active assertion of
our claims, and we call upon our respective houses and all
depending thereon to loyally follow and uphold us in so
doing.
" SECOND :
" In the event of more than one of us being present
on any occasion, and the question of pre-eminence and
precedency within the Clan having to be considered, such
pre-eminence and precedency shall be peremptorily decided
for the occasion by lot without prejudice to the permanent
position and claim of any of us.
" THIRD :
In order to remove from controversy a matter which
has for long given rise to dispute, We, the Chiefs of the
houses of Glengarry and Clan Ranald, do not purpose
hereafter to object to the use by Me, the Chief of the
MACDONALDS OF CLANRANALD 251
House of Sleat, of the designation ' n'an Eilean,' or ' Of
the Isles/ not because we, the Chiefs of the said houses
ef Clan Ranald and Glengarry, admit that I, the Chief
of the said house of Sleat, am the nearest and lawful heir
male of the said John Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross,
but solely in respect of the fact that the said designation
has by custom come to be generally associated with my
said house of Sleat.
" IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed, sealed, and
delivered these presents in quadruplicate on the dates
marked by us respectively under our Signatures, and before
the witnesses subscribing.
Signed, Sealed, and delivered by
Sleat before and in presence
of
Godfrey Middleton Bosville
MacDonald, B.A., Oxon.,
his Son, Thorpe Hall,
Bridlington.
Celia Violet Bosville Mac-
Donald, Spinster, his
daughter, Thorpe Hall,
Bridlington.
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
by Clanranald before and in
the presence of
Ranald D. G. MacDonald (of
Sanda), 39 Cours du xxx
Juillet, Bordeaux.
Mary Louisa MacDonald, wife
of the above.
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
by Glengarry before and in
the presence of
Stair C. Agnew, Barrister-at-
Law, 4 Paper Buildings,
Temple, London.
John C. Montgomerie, Jun.,
Dalmore, Stair, Ayrshire.
(Signed)
ALEXANDER MACDONALD
OF THE ISLES,
SLEAT,
Signed at Thorpe Hall,
Bridlington,
this fifteenth day of July, 1911.
ANGUS R. MACDONALD,
CLANRANALD,
Signed at Bordeaux, this
twenty-ninth day of June, 1911.
RANALD M'DONELL,
GLENGARRY,
Signed at Tuapse, South Russia,
this tenth day of September,
1911.
SEPTS OF CLAN MACDONALD OP CLANRANALD
Allan
Currie
MacBurie
MacGeachie
Maclsaac
Mackechnie
MacKessock
MacKissock
MacVarish
MacVurie
Allanson
MacAllan
MacEachin
MacGeachin
MacKeachan
MacKeochan
MacKichan
MacMurrich
MacVurrich
THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE
BADGE : Fraoch gorm (erica vulgaris) common heath.
PIBROCH : Mort Ghlinne Comhann.
ONE of the wildest and grandest of the glens of Scotland,
and at the same time, by reason of its tragic memories,
one of the best known, is that which runs westward from
the south shore of Loch Leven into the heart of the highest
mountains of Argyll. The stream which brawls through
its lonely recesses remains famous in Ossianic poetry
under the name of Cona, and high in the face of one of
its mountain precipices is to be seen the opening of a
cavern said by tradition to have been a retreat of the poet
Ossian himself. In the twelfth century, along with the
Isles and a vast extent of the western mainland of Scot-
land, Glencoe appears to have been a possession of the
great Somerled, Lord of the Isles, from whom it seems to
have passed, along with the northern mainland possessions
of the great lordship, to his eldest son, Dugal, ancestor
of the MacDougals of Lome and Argyll. In the Wars
of Succession at the beginning of the fourteenth century
the two great houses descended from Somerled's sons took
opposite sides. While the MacDougals took the side of
Baliol and Comyn, the MacDonalds, descended from
Somerled's second son, Reginald, took the side of Bruce,
and Angus Og, Reginald's great-grandson, having dis-
tinguished himself with his clan at Bannockburn, paved
the way for his family's rise again to the position of chief
consequence in the West of Scotland. As an immediate
reward, Angus Og is said to have obtained from Bruce's
grandson, King Robert II., the lands of Morvern,
Ardnamurchan, and Lochaber, forfeited by the Mac-
Dougals for the part they had taken against Bruce.
While Angus Og's eldest son, John, succeeded as Lord
of the Isles, a younger son, Iain Fraoch, appears to have
settled in Glencoe, to which he further secured the right
by marrying a daughter of a certain Dugal MacEanreug.
From Iain Fraoch this sept of the MacDonalds took its
common name of the Maclans of Glencoe, and from the
fact that one of its chiefs after the fashion of those early
252
^ .
MAC DONALD OF GLENCO
Facing page 252.
THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE 258
times, was fostered by a family in Lochaber, it frequently
received the appellation of Abarach. The race is not to
be confused with that of Maclain of Ardnamurchan, which
claimed descent from Iain Sprangaech, a son, not of
Angus Og, but of his father, Angus Mor.
While the heads of the great house of MacDonald, the
four successive Lords of the Isles, themselves, by their
successive marriages and revolts engaged in undertakings
which again and again threatened the stability of the
Scottish throne itself, the chieftains of the lesser tribes of
the name, like Maclain of Glencoe and Maclain of Ardna-
murchan, showed a disposition to engage in lawless war-
like undertakings which were only less dangerous because
indulged in on a smaller scale. In the days of James VI.
Maclain of Ardnamurchan bade open defiance to the powers
of law and order, and, breaking out into actual piracy, be-
came a terror to much of the west coast of Scotland. The
story is told of him that on his plundering excursions.
which took him up the narrow waters of Loch Linnhe, he
followed the device of painting one side of his galley
white and the other black, so that those who noticed him
sailing up the loch to plunder and burn should not recog-
nise him and waylay him as he sailed down the loch again
with his spoils on board.
Though the Maclans of Glencoe disavowed any con-
nexion with these piratical expeditions of their kinsmen,
it is to be feared their own record was not less open to
question. As time went on, and the virile house of
Campbell rose more and more into power at the expense
of their older rivals the MacDonalds, these Maclans of
Glencoe played their own part in that struggle of Monta-
gues and Capulets. The struggle came to a height in
the seventeenth century, when the Campbells at last felt
themselves strong enough to deal their MacDonald rivals a
knockout blow. In the time of the civil wars of Charles I.,
when that King's general, the Marquess of Montrose,
had been defeated at Philiphaugh, and the Marquess c
Argyll, Chief of the Campbells, found himself at the h<
of the government of Scotland and in possession of des-
potic power, the latter seized the opportunity to send
armies of the Covenant to demolish the last stronghc
of the MacDonalds and MacDougals, burning the
of the latter at Gylen and Dunnollie near '
massacring the garrison of three hundred MacHo,
in their Castle of' Dunavertie at the south end of Kin
In these events may be found the reason for 1
made by the MacDonalds of Glencoe during i
254 THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE
century which followed into the lands of their Campbell
enemies which lay to the westward. For geographical
reasons the lands which suffered most from these incur-
sions were those of the younger branch of the Argyll
family, the Campbells of Glenurchy, whose head in the
days of Charles II. became Earl of Breadalbane and
Holland. On one occasion, while a marriage feast was
going on at Glenurchy's stronghold of Finlarig on Loch
Tay, word was suddenly brought that the MacDonalds
were driving the cattle of the Campbells out of the glen,
and the wedding guests almost instantly found themselves
engaged in a bloody affray with the invaders. Again, on
their way home from playing a victorious part under King
James's general, Viscount Dundee, at the battle of Killie-
crankie, the MacDonalds of Glencoe seized the oppor-
tunity to sweep Glenlyon of its whole cattle and valuables,
and left Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Breadalbane's
henchman, absolutely a ruined man.
This feud and these events were the immediate reason
for the occurrence which remains the most outstanding
event in the history of the M'lan MacDonalds, and is
remembered in history as the Massacre of Glencoe. The
importance which that massacre has assumed on the his-
toric page is altogether out of proportion to the actual size
of the occurrence and to the number of those who lost
their lives on the occasion. As a matter of fact, only thirty-
eight of the MacDonalds were actually slain, and, though
others may have perished among the snowdrifts in the
high glens through which they tried to escape, the total
is far less than that of those who fell in scores of old clan
onsets and surprises, and cannot of course be compared
with other massacres of clans obnoxious to the Campbells,
like those of the 300 MacDonalds at Dunaverty and the
200 Laments at Dunoon. The circumstances of the case
have given an outstanding interest and notoriety to the
Massacre of Glencoe — the treachery which was used, the
individuals who were concerned, and the matchless moun-
tain theatre in which the tragic drama was set. Not a
little of the notoriety of the event is also owed to the fact
that it has been singled out for special description by
such masters of the literary art as Sir Walter Scott and
Lord Macaulay.
The event is too well known to call for minute descrip-
tion here. The prime mover in the undertaking, as h»s
already been suggested, was obviously Campbell of
Glenurchy, Earl of Breadalbane, and he had a ready tool
to his hand in the person of Robert Campbell of Glenlyon,
THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE 255
who, as we have seen, had motives of his own for seeking
reprisals on the MacDonalds. The days were over when
it was safe for a Highland chief like Breadalbane to
muster his clan openly and fall upon and destroy an
obnoxious neighbour by force of arms on his own
authority. Breadalbane was astute enough so to manage
affairs that in the attack upon the MacDonalds of Glencoe
he should be acting with Government authority find
ostensibly in the interest of law and order. In the ***mit
of the cunning old fox of Loch Tay-side the other and
higher individuals to whom a stigma is attached for their
part in directing and authorising the massacre— King
William II. and III. and Sir John Dalrymple first Earl
of Stair — were little more than pawns in the game.
After the dispersal of Dundee's forces following the fall
of King James's general at Killiecrankie, it was repre-
sented to King William's Government as desirable that
the chiefs of clans should be required to swear allegiance
to the new Government, and it was arranged that if they
laid down their arms and took the oath before ist January,
1692, they should receive an indemnity for all previous
offences. Breadalbane was the intermediary, and he took
care to manage matters very astutely in his own interest.
In the previous July, this noble had been trusted with
the task of arranging matters with the Jacobite Highland
Chiefs, and when they met him at his castle of Achalader.
Glencoe, who was of a stately and venerable presence, and
whose courage and sagacity gave him much influence with
his neighbouring chieftains, is said to have taxed Breadal-
bane with the design of retaining for his own use part
of the money which Government had placed in his hands
for securing the good will of the chiefs. The Earl had
retorted by charging Glencoe with the theft of cattle from
his lands, and, in the altercation, old feuds were recalled
and an evil spirit was excited which promised ill for the
weaker party. Maclain was repeatedly heard to say that
he feared mischief from no man so much as from Breadal-
bane. Breadalbane as a matter of fact seems to have
taken pains to direct the special attention of rtie Master
of Stair, as Secretary of State, to the MacDonalds of
Glencoe as the most suitable clan of whom to makc*
terrifying example to the Highlands. In a letter of
December, the Secretary intimated the intention of i
ment to destroy utterly some of the clans in <
terrify the others, and expressed the hope
MacDonalds of Glencoe would afford the oppo
action against them by refusing to take the oath.
256 THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE
Unfortunately Maclain was foolish enough to allow
the days of grace almost to run out before taking the oath.
Then, when he went to do so at Fort William, he was
startled to find that Colonel Hill, the Governor there, not
being a civil officer, had no power to accept it. It was
necessary to go to Inveraray and take the oath there before
the Sheriff of Argyll. The roads were almost impassable
with snowdrifts, and, though the unhappy chieftain put
forth his best efforts, the first of January was past
before he reached Inveraray. The Sheriff was Sir Colin
Campbell of Ardkinglas. In the circumstances, seeing
that Glencoe had really tendered the oath in time, though
to the wrong officer, he administered the oath and informed
the Privy Council of the special circumstances. Maclain
returned home believing that all was right, but as a matter
of fact his doom was sealed. Already in advance a war-
rant had been procured from King William for military
execution against him. The Sheriff's letter was never
produced before the Privy Council, and the certificate of
Maclain 's having taken the oath was blotted out from the
record. It seems probable that the fact of the Chief's
submission was never brought to the King's knowledge.
Events then moved relentlessly forward. Before the
end of January a detachment of Argyll's regiment under
Campbell of Glenlyon entered Glencoe. On Maclain 's
sons with a body of clansmen meeting them and demand-
ing their errand, Glenlyon replied that they came as
friends to take quarters in the glen in order to relieve
the overcrowded garrison at Fort William. They were
accordingly hospitably received, and entertained for fifteen
days by the unsuspecting chief and his people. On I2th
December the order came to put to the sword every
MacDonald in the glen under 70 years of age, to close
all avenues of escape, and to take a special care that " the
old fox and his cubs " should be put to death.
As if to fill the cup of treachery Glenlyon continued
to enjoy the hospitality of the unsuspecting clansmen. He
took his morning draught as usual that day at the house
of one of the sons of the chief, Alastair MacDonald, who
was married to his niece. He and two of his officers
accepted an invitation to dine next day with Maclain him-
self ; and he sat late that night in his own quarters playing
cards with the chief's sons. He even reassured these
young men, who had come to him alarmed at finding the
sentries doubled and the soldiers preparing their arms,
by telling them he was about to set out against some of
Glengarry's men, and he ended " If anything evil had
THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE 257
been intended would I not have told Alastair and my
niece."
At four o'clock in the morning a single shot rang out,
and the bloody work began. Lindsay, one of the officers
who had promised to dine with the chief, came with a
party to Maclain's door and knocked for admittance, and
as Glencoe was getting out of bed and giving orders for
refreshments to be provided for his visitors, they shot
him dead. His aged wife was then stripped and ill-
treated, the savage soldiery even tearing the gold rings
from her fingers with their teeth, so that she died next day.
While this was being done the chief's two sons were
roused from bed by an old domestic, who bade then fly
for their lives. " Is it a time to sleep," he said, "when
your father is murdered on his own hearth? " As they
came out the shrieks and musket shots on every hand
confirmed the warning, and, taking to flight, the young
men, by their perfect knowledge of the spot, managed to
escape by the southern exit from the glen. Their example
was followed by most of the other inhabitants, and as
Major Duncanson, Glenlyon's superior officer, had been
hindered by the snows from closing the outlets of Glencoe,
most of them escaped. Many scenes of blood, however,
were brutally enacted. A certain Captain Drummond in
particular distinguished himself by his brutality, ordering
a young lad of twenty who had been spared by the soldiers
to be instantly shot, and himself with his dirk stabbing
a boy of six as he clung to Glenlyon's knees, begging for
mercy. At one house a party of soldiers fired on a group
of nine MacDonalds sitting round their morning fire and
killed four of them. The owner of the house, who was
unhurt, asked to be allowed to die in the open air. Barbe,
the sergeant in command of the party, answered, " For
your bread which I have eaten I will grant the request, '
and MacDonald was allowed to come out. He was, how-
ever, an active man, and as the soldiers were taking aim
he threw his plaid over their faces and vanished.
The clan then numbered about two hundred fighting
men. Of these more than 160 escaped, and, with their
wives and ch'Mren, made their way through the deep
snows for twelve miles to a place of safety,
homes were utterly burned, and their means of subsist
some twelve hundred head of cattle and horses, and i
large number of sheep and goats, were driven off to Fort
William for the u± * of the garrison.
It was three years before enquiry was made hv Govern-
ment into the dastardly business. The report
VOL. I.
258 THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE
Royal Commission then appointed fixed the whole blame
upon the Master of Stair. Though his sole punishment
seemed to be that he was driven for a time from public
life, it was said when he died in 1707 that his end had
come by his own hand. In the tradition of the Highlands
the massacre was thought to have entailed a curse upon
the house of Glenlyon. In a later campaign the head of
that house was in command of a firing party appointed to
carry out the execution of a soldier. It was arranged that
the proceedings should be carried up to the firing point,
and that only then the man should be reprieved. The
signal for the soldiers to fire was to be the waving of r
white handkerchief by Glenlyon. When the moment
arrived the officer put his hand into his pocket to produce
the reprieve, but unluckily brought the handkerchief with
it. This was taken for the concerted signal, the soldiers
fired and the man fell dead. At that Glenlyon is said to
have struck his brow with his hand, exclaiming, " The
curse of God and Glenlyon is here. I am an unfortunate
ruined man ! " and he forthwith retired from the service.
Incidents of the massacre are told even yet in the
neighbourhood. Towards the middle of the eighteenth
century it is said an old soldier arrived at the inn at Port
Appin, and by the other guests was regarded with lower-
ing looks. Something he said excited their suspicion,
and he was asked if he had ever been in the neighbour-
hood before. He admitted that he had, and on being
pressed confessed he had been one of the soldiers who
took part in the massacre of Glencoe. Dirks were drawn
and blood seemed likely to be shed, when he told his tale.
In the dark of the fateful morning, he said, he had been
following his officer along the hillside, when a woman
was seen behind a boulder a little way off, trying to hide
a child. The officer bade him see to it, and kill the child
if it happened to be a boy. It was a boy, but before the
mother's tears and prayers he had not the heart to obey
his order. At the same time he was bound to show blood
on his sword, and as a dog passed at the moment he
plunged his weapon through it. A few minutes later, on
his officer asking him whether he had slain the child, he
held up his reddened blade and exclaimed, " Ask that! "
As the soldier told the story the innkeeper's face had
grown white. " If you were that red-coat I was that
boy," he cried, " and there will be a place for you at the
fireside of the Inn of Appin as long as you live."
Another romantic sequel of the Massacre is narrated
by Sir Walter Scott. When, during the Rising of 1745
THE MACDONALDS OF GLENCOE
the Highland army was approaching Edinburgh it
feared that the Glencoe men might seek to revenge them-
selves by burning the house of Newliston, seat of Lord
Stair, whose ancestor had been the chief mover in that
crime, and it was arranged that a guard should be potlftd
to protect the place. MacDonald of Glencoe heard of the
resolution, and, deeming his honour involved, demanded
that the guard should be supplied by the men of his own
clan. The Prince agreed, and so it came about that " tlir
MacDonalds guarded from the slightest injury the house
of the cruel and crafty statesman who had devised and
directed the massacre of their ancestors."
By reason of its memories and its magnificence,
Glencoe is visited by thousands of pilgrims every year,
and in many a spot above the sunny little clachan of
Invercoe are still to be seen the ruins of the houses associ-
ated with the tragedy of that terrible February morning
in 1692. In the early part of last century, however, the
lands were left by Ewan MacDonald, the chief of the
time, to his daughter, and towards the end of the century,
Glencoe was acquired by the great Canadian statesman
who took from it part of his title as Lord Strathcona and
Mount Royal.
SEPTS OF CLAN MACDONALD or GUKNCOB
Henderson Johnson
Kean Keene
MacHenry Maolan
MacKean
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