1 01-02 12 Nov 1889 NORTHERN ENSIGN, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER
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1 01-02 12 Nov 1889 NORTHERN ENSIGN, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1889 THE EARLDOM OF CAITHNESS NEW LIGHT ON THE SUCCESSION. MR THOMAS SINCLAIR, M.A, contributes an article of peculiar interest to the November number of the Highland Monthly. It is entitled the “Fortunes of the Ratters," and commences with a reference to the recent papers on Castle Girnigoe and the Sinclairs of Ratter" by Mr Macdonald, Town Clerk of Inverness. The keynote to Mr Sinclair's contribution is contained in the following sentences:— " That they (the article* by Mr Macdonald) have an extremely practical interest since the death of the young Earl of Caithness, especially as to who has now the proper right to the northern Earldom, adds to their general historic value. Indeed, they go far towards completely proving that all the Earls, since the death of Alexander in 1765, have been usurpers, some of them willingly." This is a startling statement, and we shall give a few extracts from the article to how the statement in supported. Mr Sinclair has the following with regard to THE IMPRISONED MASTER OF CAITHNESS Before discussing so novel a view of the immediate situation of the Caithness peerage, which would preclude the Aberdeen banker of the Durran family from the title, it is necessary to follow the account given of the Ratters, two of whom were among the usurping earls of this latest information. The first of them, Sir John Sinclair of Ratter, knight, was the third son of John the Master of Caithness, who died 16th March 1576, in the dungeon of Girnigoe Castle, after being imprisoned from September, 1572, by his father, George, the fourth earl. Mr G. M. Sutherland, in the Celtic Magazine, mentioned authentic ancient documents for this period of the imprisonment instead of Sir Robert Gordon's seven years. Such exaggerations are found in everything Gordon writes of the Sinclair family. His father made escape from being the ward of Earl George, which was a high feudal crime. He was also his son-in-law. The ward, when of age, divorced the earl's daughter. Marrying again to the divorced wife of Bothwell, of Queen Mary notoriety, his second son by her, Sir Hubert, the historian, look up the feud between the two families with more than even the usual bitterness of that period. To vindicate the fifty four years rule of George, the fourth earl, both over Sutherland and Caithness, against his malicious attacks is by no means difficult, Mr Sutherland having himself, by aid of his legal knowledge, almost completed the case in George's favour. Yet it is the other day only that some writers, on the occasion of the death of the Earl of Caithness, paraded Gordon's scandalous lying as truth, quite unconscious that they were following the lead of a person of proved unveracity, and of mortal malignity as to the Sinclairs of Caithness. It is a pity that Mr Macdonald has in his articles also accepted so much as he has done on such authority, even for introductory purposes In the advocacy of the Earl's charter, Mr Sutherland unfortunately admitted that the Master was murdered in the dungeon, but of this there is no proof whatsoever, and least of all is there any reason to believe that his father aided or wished for his death. There is enough of material to show that if the unfortunate Master of Caithness died in the dungeon it was a natural death, and further, that if imprisoned there at all, and not in the upper portion of the castle, it was after the manslaughter of his brother William, supposing that this also is not an invention by Gordon, who is the source of all the so-called traditions on the subject. Mr Sutherland's dangerous assumption that the " murder of William Sinclair by the Master in the dungeon was the cause 2 of his own death very soon afterwards," is totally met by the fact that William's lands of Canisbay and others were in the possession of his brother George, as his heir, at least a year before the death of the Master, for which reference is given to the printed Register of the Great Seal. Two years after the event, the clergy gave a pension to the Earl for "zeal towards the glory of God," in collecting the Church's rent among other things meritorious; and this does not accord with such as those of Gordon about doing his son to death in a dungeon. But the theme will by and by be treated at length on State records and other faithful documents. The Ulbster family, who are descended from an illegitimate son of William, had a tradition that Earl George and the Master, his eldest son, were both seeking in marriage a Euphemia, the only daughter of an ancestor of Lord Reay, and that the earl, to aid his own suit, imprisoned the son. There is no doubt that both were free to marry at the time of the imprisonment, the Countess having died in 1572, and the Master being divorced while in prison because of adultery with a Thurso woman, Rorison or Gunn. Another thing is also known, that the Earl had imprisoned at least one relative before, namely, his natural brother, David of Dun, chamberlain of the bishopric of Caithness. For this he had a Royal remission or pardon in 1565. It is possible that he was of the temper to incarcerate his son, not for love business, but for secular or saving reasons. In that period, if the Master had, as said, hurt his brother to the death, though after some days of lingering, the crime would have been called slaughter, the punishment of which was capital, no matter what the rank. To keep his son in prison — the Earl being justiciary — was the only way of prolonging the Master's life. The Earl's enemies were quite able to give another colour to the matter, and it is possible that tenderness for his son kept his mouth shut. THE SINCLAIRS OF RATTER. Of Sir John of Ratter we learn more in history than Mr Macdonald thinks. ...... There is a good deal of knowledge of Sir John in a contract between the fifth earl and his uncle, George, Chancellor of Caithness. This document will shortly be published, and it throws light on the Girnigoe mystery, and on some of the persons related to it. The succession of Sir John's three sons to Ratter lands is illustrated by an inventory of about forty documents, of the charter and bond kind, to be found in a volume of printed law papers in the British Museum, containing the proof of 1767 by William Sinclair of Ratter, when claiming the earldom of Caithness. It is not necessary to fasten on John, or indeed upon any of the brothers in particular, the origin of the pecuniary embarrassment; for their father had only a small property, given him, as one ancient record says, to “aid him towards a living." The brothers James and John borrowed for their sister's dowry £3000 from Sir John, son of George of Mey, then the wealthiest family ; and Sir William of Cadboll being another of the Meys, it is easy to see how he came to have Ratter lands mortgaged to him, and afterwards apprised. William, the son of James of Ratter, was a creditor of the Meys in 1692, when, at the instance of the Cunninghams, to Jean of whom he was married, they were made bankrupts and their estates sold. It is of William's son, John of Ratter, that the pathetic tale of the Inverness imprisonment for debt is told ; and, being married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William of Mey, it is probable that the financial troubles, for which he suffered so severely, came to him partly through connection with the liabilities of that family. But fortunes were small then, and estates were often lost and gained. Mr Macdonald does not mention John of Ratter's petition from the vault of the steeple of Inverness, nor the fact that it was at the instance of Alexander Rorison, merchant Thurso, for a debt of £1400 Scots, that In May, 1700, he was confined within the prison of Tain. The petition and explanatory matter appeared some years ago in an Inverness newspaper, and subsequently in the Northern Ensign, Wick. But an unexpected addition is 3 afforded, not by the fact well known, that Neil Macleod of Assynt obtained a degree of apuilzie or wasting for £2000 Scots against Ratter and Sir James of Mey in 1692, the year of Mey's bankruptcy but that on 2nd May, 1704, Ratter was imprisoned in the tolbooth of Inverness for not paying a portion of this debt. Neil was the betrayer of Montrose, and it was surprising, to say no more, that he found himself successful, but it occurred in the time of William and Mary. THE RAID ON ASSYNT. His (Mr Macdonald's) guesses as to the raid on Assynt can be supplemented with facts. In a legal paper written In 1738, consisting of 22 pages, there is a full narration of the methods by which Macleod was dispossessed of Assynt, and of the hardships which be suffered from the Earl of Seaforth, the Mackenzies, his clan, and from the Sinclairs of Cadboll or Mey, with others of the name. The country of Assynt suffered a series of raids. In 1640, while Neil Macleod, its laird, was a minor in the house of Seaforth at Braen, Seaforth ordered his men to fall upon Neil's castle.