The Highland Clans of Scotland
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:00 CD CO THE HIGHLAND CLANS OF SCOTLAND ARMORIAL BEARINGS OF THE CHIEFS The Highland CLANS of Scotland: 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 WIAN'S CELEBRATED PAINTINGS OF THE COSTUMES OF THE CLANS VOLUME TWO A D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK MCMXXIII Oft o PKINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS PAGE THE MACDONALDS OF KEPPOCH 26l THE MACDONALDS OF GLENGARRY 268 CLAN MACDOUGAL 278 CLAN MACDUFP . 284 CLAN MACGILLIVRAY . 290 CLAN MACINNES . 297 CLAN MACINTYRB . 299 CLAN MACIVER . 302 CLAN MACKAY . t 306 CLAN MACKENZIE . 314 CLAN MACKINNON 328 CLAN MACKINTOSH 334 CLAN MACLACHLAN 347 CLAN MACLAURIN 353 CLAN MACLEAN . 359 CLAN MACLENNAN 365 CLAN MACLEOD . 368 CLAN MACMILLAN 378 CLAN MACNAB . * 382 CLAN MACNAUGHTON . 389 CLAN MACNICOL 394 CLAN MACNIEL . 398 CLAN MACPHEE OR DUFFIE 403 CLAN MACPHERSON 406 CLAN MACQUARIE 415 CLAN MACRAE 420 vi CONTENTS PAGE CLAN MATHESON ....... 427 CLAN MENZIES ........ 432 CLAN MUNRO . 438 CLAN MURRAY ........ 445 CLAN OGILVY ........ 454 CLAN ROSE . 460 CLAN ROSS ........ 467 CLAN SHAW . -473 CLAN SINCLAIR ........ 479 CLAN SKENE ........ 488 CLAN STEWART ........ 492 CLAN SUTHERLAND ....... 499 CLAN URQUHART . .508 INDEX ......... 513 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Armorial Bearings .... Frontispiece MacDonald of Keppoch . Facing page viii Cairn on Culloden Moor 264 MacDonell of Glengarry 268 The Well of the Heads 272 Invergarry Castle .... 274 MacDougall ..... 278 Duustaffnage Castle . 280 The Mouth of Loch Etive . 282 MacDuff ..... 284 MacGillivray ..... 290 Well of the Dead, Culloden Moor . 294 Maclnnes ..... 296 Maclntyre . 298 Old Clansmen's Houses 300 Maclver ..... 302 MacKay . 306 Mackenzie ..... 3i4 Brahan Castle ..... 316 Castle Leod, Strathpeffer . 320 Mackinnon ..... 328 Mackintosh ..... 334 Castle Inverlochy .... > ., 340 MacLachlan . 346 Castle Lachlan .... 348 MacLaurin ..... 352 Loch Voil and the Old MacLaurin Country 354 Maclean ..... 35S MacLennan . 364 MacLeod . 368 Macmillan ..... 378 vii viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Lawers, Loch Tay ..... Facing page 380 MacNab . 382 Francis, Twelfth Chief of MacNab . 384 Kinnell House . 386 MacNaughton . ,, . 388 MacNicol . * . 394 MacNiel . / . 398 Kismul Castle ..... 400 MacPhee or Duffie ..... 402 Macpherson . -'. 406 . MacQuarie \ , 414 MacRae ... 420 Matheson . ,,426 Menzies . ,,432 Weem Castle ... 434 Munro . ..... 438 Murray . .. 444 Tullibardine Kirk . ,,448 Ogilvy ... 454 Inverquharity Castle . 456 Rose ....... 460 Kilravock Castle, Nairnshire . 464 Ross . 466 Shaw .... 472 Sinclair. ... 478 Sir John Sinclair, Bart., of Ulbster . 484 Skene . 48F Stewart . ,,492 Garth Castle, Glenlyon . ,,494 Sutherland 498 Ur( uhart l 508 MAC DONALD OF KEPPOCH eding page 261. THE MACDONALDS OF KEPPOCH BADGB : Fraoch gorm (erica vulgaris) common heath. SLOGAN : Dia 's Naomh Aindrea. PIBROCH : Ceapach na fasaich, and Blar Mhaol rua'. AN interesting subject for the pen of the Scottish his- torical student would be the mass of evil consequences, extending for centuries afterwards, which flowed from the moral indiscretion of Robert II., first of the Stewart kings. As a warrior and a statesman the Stewart was in every way worthy of his grandfather, King Robert the Bruce. It was his private conduct, in the matter of his conjugal relationships, which entailed such endless woes upon his descendants and upon Scotland. Though legitimated by a Papal dispensation in 1347, eight years before his second marriage, there can be no question that the Stewart's early connection with Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan was irregular. Out of this fact arose the claim of the children of his later marriage with Euphemia Ross, the Earls of Strathearn and Atholl, to be the proper heirs of the Crown, a claim which brought about the assassination of James I. and the terrible Douglas Wars against James II. At the same time, by their own acts the children of Elizabeth Mure brought a heritage of woe on Scotland. The eldest son, John, ascended the throne as Robert III., but the third son, the ambitious, able Robert, Duke of Albany, ruled the country, secured the death of Robert III.'s elder son, by starvation, at Falk- land, and the capture and long imprisonment of the king's second son, afterwards James I., by the English, for which betrayal a fearful nemesis was suffered by his own son and grandsons on Stirling heading hill. Elizabeth Mure's fourth son was the savage Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, better known as the Wolf of Badenoch, vhose defiance of the laws of God and man kept the rthern half of Scotland in fire and bloodshed for more nan twenty years. To mention only one other of the twenty-one children of Robert II., his eldest daughter Margaret, who was married to John, Lord of the Isles, 35o, carried with her what seems to have been nothing s than a curse. To make way for her, the Lord of the Isles set aside his first wife, Amy MacRuari, with her VOL. II 26l A 262 THE MACDONALDS OF KEPPOCH of the children, and from that day the misfortunes great House of the Isles began, and the downfall of the whole race of Macdonald. It was Margaret Stewart's son, of Donald of the Isles, who married a sister of the Earl Ross, and on that Earl's death claimed the Earldom. This was claimed also by his uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany, for his own younger son. To assert his claim Donald, in 1411, marched across Scotland and fought the bloody battle of Harlaw, where he was defeated by his cousin, Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, eldest natural son of the Wolf of Badenoch. It is true that in 1431 the tables were turned, when the same Earl of Mar was defeated by the Islesmen, under Donald Balloch, in the fierce battle but the of Inverlochy ; victory brought down upon Alexander, the next Lord of the Isles, Margaret Stewart's grandson, condign punishment at the hands of his other cousin, and the misfortunes of the house King James I., " went from less to till in fourth and " more, 1493 John, last Lord of the Isles, died a forfeited and landless man in Paisley Abbey or Dundee. In these matters the Macdonalds of Keppoch shared the misfortunes of the great House of the Isles from which they had sprung. Their ancestor was Alastair, third son of John, Lord of the Isles, and Margaret Stewart, daughter of King Robert II. Angus Og, the father of John of the Isles, who figures as the hero in Scott's poem, had received from King Robert the Bruce, as a reward for loyal support, the lands of Morven, Ardnamurchan, and Lochaber, forfeited by his kinsmen the MacDougals of Lome, and of the Isles John made his third son Lord of Lochaber. In " a deed of 1398 Alastair is termed Mag- incus vir et potens," and for three hundred years his cendants were known as the race of Alastair Carraich s not till the end of the seventeenth century that the Colla Keppoch Chief, MacGillieaspuig, on the persuasion his the kinsman, Glengarry Chief, Lord MacDonell os, resumed the family name of Macdonald. Th onghold of the Macdonalds of Keppoch stood on hig I at the meeting of the Roy and the ** Spean, where, ***** the fruit trees f their old gardenrirdrn continued^^to blossom and bear fruit C mi Ch Wa r had flowed Past the walls of th i lTi5!l r f J x? N tabl in while o d ^f tt uUn- ? ''. Alexander, lHy a prisoner in ,K ^ Tantallon, and nteSS f RoSS ' was immur*d . on Inch^mm. AlasairA fl ^r u Carraich joined the formidable in- the Islesmen under his cousin, Donald Balloch, THE MACDONALDS OF KEPPOCH 263 Chief of Clanranald, which routed the Royal forces under Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, and the Earl of Caith- ness at Inverlochy. For this the lordship of Lochaber was forfeited and bestowed by James I. on his loyal sup- porter, the Mackintosh Chief, Captain of Clan Chattan. This grant proved a cause of trouble for several centuries. Like the MacGregors further south, the Macdonalds resisted the Mackintosh's parchment tenure, and con- tinued for the most part to hold their lands by the ancient coir a glaive, or right of the sword. Alastair Carraich's son Angus, the second Keppoch Chief, had two sons, Donald and Alastair. Of these, Donald was slain in 1498 in a battle with the first Appin Chief, Dougal Stewart, and his son John earned the enmity of his clan by an act which the Highlanders invariably regarded as unpardonable. One of his tribe, having committed some offence, fled to him for protec- tion. John, however, weakly handed the man over to the Mackintosh Chief, as Steward of Lochaber. By this act he sealed his own fate. The clan deposed him from the chiefship, and made his cousin and heir-male presumptive, Donald Glas, chief in his place. Ranald, the son of Donald Glas, met a still more tragic fate. Along with the Captain of Clan Cameron he took part, in 1544, in supporting the stout and capable John Moydertach, natural son of the late Chief of Clanranald, in his claim to the chiefship, which had been conferred upon him by his clan, in despite of the weak and unpopular legitimate heir, Ranald Gallda. For a time, while Moydertach was imprisoned by James V., Ranald was placed in possession of the estates his Frasers Moidart by mother's people, the ; but on James's death and Moydertach's return, Gallda fled, and his rival, helped by Keppoch and the Camerons. carried fire and sword through the Fraser country. These disorders brought into action the Earl of Huntly, as King's Lieutenant in the North. With a force of the Frasers, Grants, and Mackintoshes, he drove out Moyder- tach and his raiders, and replaced Ranald Gallda in possession of his estates.