CHAPTER VIII.

Mackay, or Siol Mhorgan--Mackays of Clan-Abrach--Bighouse--Strathy --Melness--Kinloch--Mackays of Holland--Macnicol--Sutherland--Gunn --Maclaurin or Maclaren--Macrae--Buchanan--“The King of Kippen” --Buchanan of Auchmar--Colquhoun--Macgregors and Macfarlanes in Dumbartonshire--Forbes--Forbes of Tolquhoun--Craigievar--Pitsligo and Fettercairn--Culloden--Urquhart.

The most northern mainland county of Scotland is that of Caithness, and the principal clan inhabiting this district is the important one of Mackay, or the siol Mhorgan. With regard to Caithness, Mr Skene says--“The district of Caithness was originally of much greater extent than the modern county of that name, as it included the whole of the extensive and mountainous district of Strathnaver. Towards the middle of the tenth century the Norwegian Jarl of Orkney obtained possession of this province, and with the exception of a few short intervals, it continued to form a part of his extensive territories for a period of nearly two hundred years. The district of Strathnaver, which formed the western portion of the ancient district of Caithness, differed very much in appearance from the rest of it, exhibiting indeed the most complete contrast which could well be conceived, for while the eastern division was in general low, destitute of mountains, and altogether of a Lowland character, Strathnaver possessed the characteristics of the rudest and most inaccessible of Highland countries; the consequence of this was, that while the population of Caithness proper became speedily and permanently Norse, that of Strathnaver must, from the nature of the country, have remained in a great measure Gaelic; and this distinction between the two districts is very strongly marked throughout the Norse Sagas, the eastern part being termed simply _Katenesi_, while Strathnaver, on the other hand, is always designated ‘Dölum a Katenesi,’ or the Glens of Caithness. That the population of Strathnaver remained Gaelic we have the distinct authority of the Sagas, for they inform us that the Dölum, or glens, were inhabited by the ‘Gaddgedli,’ a word plainly signifying some tribe of the Gael, as in the latter syllable we recognise the word Gaedil or Gael, which at all events shews that the population of that portion was not Norse.”

MACKAY.

“The oldest Gaelic clan which we find in possession of this part of the ancient district of Caithness is the clan Morgan or Mackay.”

The accounts of the origin of the Mackays are various. In the MS. of 1450, there is no reference to it, although mention is made of the Mackays of Kintyre, who were called of Ugadale. These, however, were vassals of the Isles, and had no connection with the Mackays of Strathnaver. Pennant assigns to them a Celto-Irish descent, in the 12th century, after King William the Lion had defeated Harald, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, and taken possession of these districts. Mr Skene[228] supposes that they were descended from what he calls the aboriginal Gaelic inhabitants of Caithness. The Norse Sagas state that about the beginning of the twelfth century, “there lived in the Dölum of Katanesi (or Strathnaver) a man named Moddan, a noble and rich man,” and that his sons were Magnus Orfi and Ottar, the Jarl in Thurso. The title of jarl was the same as the Gaelic maormor, and Mr Skene is of opinion that Moddan and his son Ottar were the Gaelic maormors of Caithness.

MACKAY.

Sir Robert Gordon, in his History of Sutherland (p. 302), from a similarity of badge and armorial bearings, accounts the clan Mackay a branch of the Forbeses, but this is by no means probable.

Mr Smibert is of opinion that the Mackays took their name from the old _Catti_ of Caithness, and that the chiefs were of the Celto-Irish stock. This, however, is a very improbable supposition. Whatever may have been the origin of the chiefs, there is every reason to believe that the great body of the clan Mackay originally belonged to the early Celtic population of Scotland, although, from their proximity to the Norse immigrants, it is not at all improbable that latterly the two races became largely blended.

As we have already, in the first part of the work, had occasion to enter somewhat minutely into the early history of this important clan, it will be unnecessary to enter into lengthened detail in this place, although it will be scarcely possible to avoid some slight repetition. We must refer the reader for details to the earlier chapters of the general history.

Alexander, who is said to have been the first of the family, aided in driving the Danes from the north. His son, Walter, chamberlain to Adam, bishop of Caithness, married that prelate’s daughter, and had a son, Martin, who received from his maternal grandfather certain church lands in Strathnaver, being the first of the family who obtained possessions there. Martin had a son, Magnus or Manus, who fought at Bannockburn under Bruce, and had two sons, Morgan and Farquhar. From Morgan the clan derived their Gaelic name of Clan-wic-Worgan, or Morgan, and from Farquhar were descended the Clan-wic-Farquhar in Strathnaver.

Donald, Morgan’s son, married a daughter of Macneill of Gigha, who was named Iye, and had a son of the same name, in Gaelic Aodh, pronounced like Y or I.

Aodh had a son, another Donald, called Donald Macaodh, or Mackaoi, and it is from this son that the clan has acquired the patronymic of Mackay. He and his son were killed in the castle of Dingwall, by William, Earl of Sutherland, in 1395. The Mackays, however, were too weak to take revenge, and a reconciliation took place between Robert, the next earl, and Angus Mackay, the eldest of Donald’s surviving sons, of whom there were other two, viz., Houcheon Dubh, and Neill. Angus, the eldest son, married a sister of Malcolm Macleod of the Lewis, and had by her two sons, Angus Dubh, that is, dark-complexioned, and Roderick Gald, that is, Lowland. On their father’s death, their uncle, Houcheon Dubh, became their tutor, and entered upon the management of their lands.

In 1411, when Donald, Lord of the Isles, in prosecution of his claim to the earldom of Ross, burst into Sutherland, he was attacked at Dingwall, by Angus Dubh, or Black Angus Mackay. The latter, however, was defeated and taken prisoner, and his brother, Roriegald, and many of his men were slain. After a short confinement, Angus was released by the Lord of the Isles, who, desirous of cultivating the alliance of so powerful a chief, gave him his daughter, Elizabeth, in marriage, and with her bestowed upon him many lands by charter in 1415. He was called _Enneas-en-Imprissi_, or “Angus the Absolute,” from his great power. At this time, we are told, Angus Dubh could bring into the field 4000 fighting men.

Angus Dubh, with his four sons, was arrested at Inverness by James I. After a short confinement, Angus was pardoned and released with three of them, the eldest, Neill Mackay, being kept as a hostage for his good behaviour. Being confined in the Bass at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, he was ever after called Neill Wasse (or Bass) Mackay.

In 1437, Neill Wasse Mackay was released from confinement in the Bass, and on assuming the chiefship, he bestowed on John Aberigh, for his attention to his father, the lands of Lochnaver, in fee simple, which were long possessed by his posterity, that particular branch of the Mackays, called the Sliochd-ean-Aberigh, or an-Abrach. Neill Wasse, soon after his accession, ravaged Caithness, but died the same year, leaving two sons, Angus, and John Roy Mackay, the latter founder of another branch, called the Sliochd-ean-Roy.

Angus Mackay, the elder son, assisted the Keiths in invading Caithness in 1464, when they defeated the inhabitants of that district in an engagement at Blaretannie. He was burnt to death in the church of Tarbet in 1475, by the men of Ross, whom he had often molested. With a daughter, married to Sutherland of Dilred, he had three sons, viz., John Reawigh, meaning yellowish red, the colour of his hair; Y-Roy Mackay; and Neill Naverigh Mackay.

To revenge his father’s death, John Reawigh Mackay, the eldest son, raised a large force, and assisted by Robert Sutherland, uncle to the Earl of Sutherland, invaded Strathoikell, and laid waste the lands of the Rosses in that district. A battle took place, 11th July 1487, at Aldy-Charrish, when the Rosses were defeated, and their chief, Alexander Ross of Balnagowan, and seventeen other principal men of that clan were slain. The victors returned home with a large booty.

It was by forays such as these that the great Highland chiefs, and even some of the Lowland nobles, contrived, in former times, to increase their stores and add to their possessions, and the Mackays about this time obtained a large accession to their lands by a circumstance narrated in the former part of this history, connected with Alexander Sutherland of Dilred, nephew of Y-Roy Mackay, the then chief.

In 1516, Y-Roy Mackay gave his bond of service to Adam Gordon of Aboyne, brother of the Earl of Huntly, who had become Earl of Sutherland, by marriage with Elizabeth, sister and heiress of the ninth earl, but died soon after. Donald, his youngest son, slain at Morinsh, was ancestor of a branch of the Mackays called the Sliochd-Donald-Mackay. John, the eldest son, had no sooner taken possession of his father’s lands, than his uncle, Neill Naverigh Mackay and his two sons, assisted by a force furnished them by the Earl of Caithness, entered Strathnaver, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to dispossess him of his inheritance.

In 1517, in the absence of the Earl of Sutherland, who had wrested from John Mackay a portion of his lands, he and his brother Donald invaded Sutherland with a large force. But after several reverses, John Mackay submitted to the Earl of Sutherland in 1518, and granted him his bond of service. But such was his restless and turbulent disposition that he afterwards prevailed upon Alexander Sutherland, the bastard, who had married his sister and pretended a claim to the earldom, to raise the standard of insurrection against the earl. After this he again submitted to the earl, and a second time gave him his bond of service and manrent in 1522. He died in 1529, and was succeeded by his brother, Donald.

In 1539, Donald Mackay obtained restitution of the greater part of the family estates, which had been seized by the Sutherland Gordons, and in 1542 he was present in the engagement at Solway Moss. Soon after, he committed various ravages in Sutherland, but after a considerable time, became reconciled to the earl, to whom he again gave his bond of service and manrent on 8th April 1549. He died in 1550.

He was succeeded by his son, Y-Mackay, who, with the Earl of Caithness, was perpetually at strife with the powerful house of Sutherland, and so great was his power, and so extensive his spoliations, that in the first parliament of James VI. (Dec. 1567), the lords of the articles were required to report, “By what means might Mackay be dantoned.” He died in 1571, full of remorse, it is said, for the wickedness of his life.

His son, Houcheon, or Hugh, succeeded him when only eleven years old. In 1587, he joined the Earl of Caithness, when attacked by the Earl of Sutherland, although the latter was his superior. He was excluded from the temporary truce agreed to by the two earls in March of that year, and in the following year they came to a resolution to attack him together. Having received secret notice of their intention from the Earl of Caithness, he made his submission to the Earl of Sutherland, and ever after remained faithful to him.

Of the army raised by the Earl of Sutherland in 1601, to oppose the threatened invasion of his territories by the Earl of Caithness, the advance guard was commanded by Patrick Gordon of Gartay and Donald Mackay of Scourie, and the right wing by Hugh Mackay. Hugh Mackay died at Tongue, 11th September 1614, in his 55th year. He was connected with both the rival houses by marriage; his first wife being Lady Elizabeth Sinclair, second daughter of George, fourth Earl of Caithness, and relict of Alexander Sutherland of Duffus; and his second, Lady Jane Gordon, eldest daughter of Alexander, eleventh Earl of Sutherland. The former lady was drowned, and left a daughter. By the latter he had two sons, Sir Donald Mackay of Far, first Lord Reay, and John, who married in 1619, a daughter of James Sinclair of Murkle, by whom he had Hugh Mackay and other children. Sir Donald Mackay of Far, the elder son, was, by Charles I., created a peer of Scotland, by the title of Lord Reay, by patent, dated 20th June 1628, to him and his heirs male whatever. From him the land of the Mackays in Sutherland acquired the name of “Lord Reay’s Country,” which it has ever since retained.

On the breaking out of the civil wars, Lord Reay, with the Earl of Sutherland and others, joined the Covenanters on the north of the river Spey. He afterwards took arms in defence of Charles I., and in 1643 arrived from Denmark, with ships and arms, and a large sum of money, for the service of the king. He was in Newcastle in 1644, when that town was stormed by the Scots, and being made prisoner, was conveyed to Edinburgh tolbooth. He obtained his release after the battle of Kilsyth in August 1645, and embarked at Thurso in July 1648 for Denmark, where he died in February 1649. He married, first, in 1610, Barbara, eldest daughter of Kenneth, Lord Kintail, and had by her Y-Mackay, who died in 1617; John, second Lord Reay, two other sons and two daughters. By a second wife, Rachel Winterfield or Harrison, he had two sons, the Hon. Robert Mackay Forbes and the Hon. Hugh Forbes. Of this marriage he procured a sentence of nullity, and then took to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Thomson of Greenwich, but in 1637 was ordained to pay his second wife £2,000 sterling for part maintenance, and £3,000 sterling yearly during his non-adherence. By Elizabeth Thomson he had one daughter.

John, second Lord Reay, joined the royalists under the Earl of Glencairn in 1654, and was taken at Balveny and imprisoned. By his wife, a daughter of Donald Mackay of Scourie, he had three sons; 1. Donald, master of Reay, who predeceased his father, leaving by his wife Ann, daughter of Sir George Munro of Culcairn, a son, George, third Lord Reay; 2. The Hon. Brigadier-General Æneas Mackay, who married Margaretta, Countess of Puchlor; and 3. The Hon. Colin Mackay. Æneas, the second son, was colonel of the Mackay Dutch regiment. His family settled at the Hague, where they obtained considerable possessions, and formed alliances with several noble families. Their representative, Berthold Baron Mackay, died 26th December 1854, at his chateau of Ophemert, in Guelderland, aged eighty-one. He married the Baroness Van Renasse Van Wilp, and his eldest son, the Baron Æneas Mackay, at one time chamberlain to the king of Holland, became next heir to the peerage of Reay, after the present family.

George, third Lord Reay, F.R.S., took the oaths and his seat in parliament, 29th October 1700. In the rebellion of 1715, he raised his clan in support of the government. In 1719, when the Earls Marischal and Seaforth, and the Marquis of Tullibardine, with 300 Spaniards, landed in the Western Highlands, he did the same, and also in 1745. He died at Tongue, 21st March 1748. He was thrice married, and had by his first wife, one son, Donald, fourth Lord Reay.

Donald, fourth Lord Reay, succeeded his father in 1748, and died at Durness, 18th August 1761. He was twice married, and, with one daughter, the Hon. Mrs Edgar, had two sons, George, fifth Lord Reay, who died at Rosebank, near Edinburgh, 27th February 1768, and Hugh, sixth lord. The fifth Lord Reay was also twice married, but had issue only by his second wife, a son, who died young, and three daughters. Hugh, his half-brother, who succeeded him, was for some years in a state of mental imbecility. He died at Skerray, 26th January 1797, unmarried, when the title devolved on Eric Mackay, son of the Hon. George Mackay of Skibo, third son of the third Lord Reay. He died at Tongue, June 25, 1782. By his wife, Anne, third daughter of Hon. Eric Sutherland, only son of the attainted Lord Duffus, he had five sons and four daughters. His eldest son, George, died in 1790. Eric, the second son, became seventh Lord Reay. Alexander, the next, an officer in the army, succeeded as eighth Lord Reay. Donald Hugh, the fourth son, a vice-admiral, died March 26, 1850. Patrick, the youngest, died an infant.

Eric, seventh Lord Reay, was, in 1806, elected one of the representative Scots peers. He died, unmarried, July 8, 1847, and was succeeded, as eighth Lord Reay, by his brother, Alexander, barrack-master at Malta, born in 1775. He married in 1809, Marion, daughter of Colonel Goll, military secretary to Warren Hastings, and relict of David Ross, Esq. of Calcutta, eldest son of the Scottish judge, Lord Ankerville; he had two sons and six daughters. He died in 1863, and was succeeded by his second son, Eric, who was born in 1813, George, the eldest son, having died in 1811.

The Mackays became very numerous in the northern counties, and the descent of their chiefs, in the male line, has continued unbroken from their first appearance in the north down to the present time. In the county of Sutherland, they multiplied greatly also, under other names, such as MacPhail, Polson, Bain, Nielson, &c. The names of Mackie and MacGhie are also said to be derived from Mackay. The old family of MacGhie of Balmaghie, which for about 600 years possessed estates in Galloway, used the same arms as the chief of the Mackays. They continued in possession of their lands till 1786. Balmaghie means Mackay town. The name MacCrie is supposed to be a corruption of MacGhie.

At the time of the rebellion of 1745, the effective force of the Mackays was estimated at 800 men by President Forbes. It is said that in the last Sutherland fencibles, raised in 1793 and disbanded in 1797, there were 33 John Mackays in one company alone. In 1794 the Reay fencibles, 800 strong, were raised in a few weeks, in “Lord Reay’s country,” the residence of the clan Mackay. The names of no fewer than 700 of them had the prefix _Mac_.

With regard to the term _Siol Mhorgan_ applied to the clan Mackay, it is right to state that Mr Robert Mackay of Thurso, the family historian, denies that as a clan they were ever known by that designation, which rests, he says, only on the affirmation of Sir Robert Gordon, without any authority. He adds: “There are, indeed, to this day, persons of the surname Morgan and Morganach, who are understood to be of the Mackays, but that the whole clan, at any period, went under that designation, is incorrect; and those of them who did so, were always few and of but small account. The name seems to be of Welsh origin; but how it obtained among the Mackays it is impossible now to say.”

Of the branches of the clan Mackay, the family of Scourie is the most celebrated. They were descended from Donald Mackay of Scourie and Eriboll, elder son of Y Mackay III., chief of the clan from 1550 to 1571, by his first wife, a daughter of Hugh Macleod of Assynt.

Donald Mackay, by his wife, Euphemia, daughter of Hugh Munro of Assynt in Ross, brother of the laird of Foulis, had three sons and four daughters. The sons were Hugh, Donald, and William. Hugh, the eldest, succeeded his father, and by the Scots Estates was appointed colonel of the Reay countrymen. He married a daughter of James Corbet of Rheims, by whom he had five sons, William, Hector, Hugh, the celebrated General Mackay,[229] commander of the government forces at the battle of Killiecrankie, James and Roderick. He had also three daughters, Barbara, married to John, Lord Reay; Elizabeth, to Hugh Munro of Eriboll, and Ann, to the Hon. Capt. William Mackay of Kinloch. William and Hector, the two eldest sons, both unmarried, met with untimely deaths. In February 1688, the Earl of Caithness, whose wife was younger than himself, having conceived some jealousy against William, caused him to be seized at Dunnet, while on his way to Orkney, with a party of 30 persons. He was conveyed to Thurso, where he was immured in a dungeon, and after long confinement was sent home in an open boat, and died the day after. In August of the same year, his brother, Hector, accompanied by a servant, having gone to Aberdeenshire, on his way to Edinburgh, was waylaid and murdered by William Sinclair of Dunbeath and John Sinclair of Murkle, and their two servants. A complaint was immediately raised before the justiciary, at the instance of John, Earl of Sutherland, and the relatives of the deceased, against the Earl of Caithness and the two Sinclairs for these crimes. A counter complaint was brought by Caithness against the pursuers, for several alleged crimes from 1649 downwards, but a compromise took place between the parties.

General Mackay’s only son, Hugh, major of his father’s regiment, died at Cambray, in 1708, aged about 28. He left two sons, Hugh and Gabriel, and a daughter. Hugh died at Breda, a lieutenant-general in the Dutch service, and colonel of the Mackay Dutch regiment, which took its name from his father. He had an only daughter, the wife of lieutenant-general Prevost, of the British service, who, on the death of his father-in-law, without male issue, obtained the king’s license to bear the name and arms of Mackay of Scourie in addition to his own, which his descendants in Holland still bear. Gabriel, the younger son, lieutenant-colonel of the Mackay regiment, died without issue. James, the next brother of General Mackay, a lieutenant-colonel in his regiment, was killed at Killiecrankie, and Roderick, the youngest, died in the East Indies, both unmarried.

The eldest branch of the Mackays was that of the Clan-Abrach, descended from John Aberigh Mackay, second son of Angus Dubh, who received the lands of Auchness, Breachat, and others, from his brother, Neill Wasse. Of this family was Robert Mackay, writer, Thurso, historian of the clan Mackay. According to this gentleman, John Aberigh, the first of this branch, gave his name to the district of Strathnaver. In the Gaelic language, he says, the inhabitants of Strathnaver are called Naverigh, and that tribe the Sliochd-nan-Aberigh. John, their founder, some say, took his appellation of Aberigh from Lochaber, where he resided in his youth with some relatives, and from Strath-na-Aberich the transition is natural to Strath-n’-Averich. Neill Naverich, above mentioned, was so called from his having belonged to the Reay Country, that is, Strathnaver. The Clan-Abrach were the most numerous and powerful branch of the Mackays. They acted as wardens of their country, and never betrayed their trust.

The BIGHOUSE branch were descendants of William Mackay of Far, younger half-brother of Donald Mackay of Scourie, by his second wife, Christian Sinclair, daughter of the laird of Dun.

The STRATHY branch sprung from John Mackay of Dilred and Strathy, brother of the first Lord Reay, and son of Hugh Mackay of Far, by his wife, Lady Jane Gordon, eldest daughter of Alexander, Earl of Sutherland.

The MELNESS branch came from the Hon. Colonel Æneas Mackay, second son of the first Lord Reay, by his first wife, the Hon. Barbara Mackenzie, daughter of Lord Kintail.

The KINLOCH branch descended from the Hon. Captain William Mackay, and the SANDWOOD branch from the Hon. Charles Mackay, sons of the first Lord Reay by his last wife, Marjory Sinclair, daughter of Francis Sinclair of Stircoke.

The founder of the HOLLAND branch of the Mackays, General Hugh Mackay, prior to 1680, when a colonel in the Dutch service, and having no prospect of leaving Holland, wrote for some of his near relatives to go over and settle in that country. Amongst those were his brother, James, and his nephews, Æneas and Robert, sons of the first Lord Reay. The former he took into his own regiment, in which, in a few years, he became lieutenant-colonel. The latter he sent to school at Utrecht for a short time, and afterwards obtained commissions for them in his own regiment. In the beginning of 1687, several British officers in the Dutch service were recalled to England by King James, and amongst others was Æneas Mackay, then a captain. On his arrival in London, the King made him some favourable propositions to enter his service, which he declined, and, in consequence, when he reached Scotland, he was ordered to be apprehended as a spy. He had been imprisoned nearly seven months in Edinburgh Castle, when the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay, and he was liberated upon granting his personal bond to appear before the privy council when called upon, under a penalty of £500 sterling. The Dutch Mackays married among the nobility of Holland, and one of the families of that branch held the title of baron.

MACNICOL.

In a district mostly in Ross-shire, anciently known by the name of Ness, there was originally located a small and broken clan, known as the MACNICOLS. The only districts, according to Skene, which at all answers to the description of Ness, are those of Assynt, Edderachylis, and Duirness.

The Macnicols were descended from one Mackrycul (the letter r in the Gaelic being invariably pronounced like n), who, tradition says, as a reward for having rescued from some Scandinavians a great quantity of cattle carried off from Sutherland, received from one of the ancient thanes of that province, the district of Assynt, then a forest belonging to them. This Mackrycul held that part of the coast of Cogeach, which is called Ullapool. In the MS. of 1450, the descent of the clan Nicail is traced in a direct line from a certain Gregall, plainly the Krycul here mentioned, who is supposed to have lived in the twelfth century. He is said to have been the ancestor, besides the Macnicols, of the Nicols and the Nicholsons. When Gregall lived, Sutherland was occupied by Gaelic tribes, and the Macnicols may therefore be considered of Gaelic origin.

About the beginning of the 14th century, the family of the chief ended in an heiress, who married Torquil Macleod, a younger son of Macleod of Lewis. Macleod obtained a crown charter of the district of Assynt and other lands in Wester Ross, which had been the property of the Macnicols. That sept subsequently removed to the Isle of Skye, and the residence of their head or chief was at Scoirebreac, on the margin of the loch near Portree.

Even after their removal to Skye the Macnicols seem to have retained their independence, for tradition relates that on one occasion when the head of this clan, called Macnicol Mor, was engaged in a warm discussion with Macleod of Rasay, carried on in the English language, the servant of the latter coming into the room, imagined they were quarrelling, and drawing his sword mortally wounded Macnicol. To prevent a feud between the two septs, a council of chieftains and elders was held to determine in what manner the Macnicols could be appeased, when, upon some old precedent, it was agreed that the meanest person in the clan Nicol should behead the laird of Rasay. The individual of least note among them was one Lomach, a maker of pannier baskets, and he accordingly cut off the head of the laird of Rasay.

In Argyleshire there were many Macnicols, but the clan may be said to have long been extinct.

SUTHERLAND.

The clan SUTHERLAND, which gets its name from being located in the district of that name, is regarded by Skene and others as almost purely Gaelic. The district of Sutherland, which was originally considerably smaller than the modern county of that name, got its name from the Orcadian Norsemen, because it lay south from Caithness, which, for a long time, was their only possession in the mainland of Scotland.

According to Skene, the ancient Gaelic population of the district now known by the name of Sutherland were driven out or destroyed by the Norwegians when they took possession of the country, after its conquest by Thorfinn, the Norse Jarl of Orkney, in 1034, and were replaced by settlers from Moray and Ross. He says, “There are consequently no clans whatever descended from the Gaelic tribe which anciently inhabited the district of Sutherland, and the modern Gaelic population of part of that region is derived from two sources. In the first place, several of the tribes of the neighbouring district of Ross, at an early period, gradually spread themselves into the nearest and most mountainous parts of the country, and they consisted chiefly of the clan Anrias. Secondly, Hugh Freskin, a descendant of Freskin de Moravia, and whose family was a branch of the ancient Gaelic tribe of Moray, obtained from King William the territory of Sutherland, although it is impossible to discover the circumstances which occasioned the grant. He was of course accompanied in this expedition by numbers of his followers, who increased in Sutherland to an extensive tribe; and Freskin became the founder of the noble family of Sutherland, who, under the title of Earls of Sutherland, have continued to enjoy possession of this district for so many generations.”[230] We do not altogether agree with this intelligent author that the district in question was at any time entirely colonised by the Norsemen. There can be no doubt that a remnant of the old inhabitants remained, after the Norwegian conquest, and it is certain that the Gaelic population, reinforced as they were undoubtedly by incomers from the neighbouring districts and from Moray, ultimately regained the superiority in Sutherland. Many of them were unquestionably from the province of Moray, and these, like the rest of the inhabitants, adopted the name of Sutherland, from the appellation given by the Norwegians to the district.

The chief of the clan was called “the Great Cat,” and the head of the house of Sutherland has long carried a black cat in his coat-of-arms. According to Sir George Mackenzie, the name of Cattu was formerly given to Sutherland and Caithness (originally Cattu-ness), on account of the great number of wild cats with which it was, at one period, infested.

The Earl of Sutherland was the chief of the clan, but on the accession to the earldom in 1766, of Countess Elizabeth, the infant daughter of the eighteenth earl, and afterwards Duchess of Sutherland, as the chiefship could not descend to a female, William Sutherland of Killipheder, who died in 1832, and enjoyed a small annuity from her grace, was accounted the eldest male descendant of the old earls. John Campbell Sutherland, Esq. of Fors, was afterwards considered the real chief.

The clan Sutherland could bring into the field 2,000 fighting men. In 1715 and 1745 they were among the loyal clans, and zealously supported the succession of the house of Hanover. Further details concerning this clan will be given in the History of the Highland Regiments.

The Earldom of Sutherland, the oldest extant in Britain, is said to have been granted by Alexander II., to William, Lord of Sutherland, about 1228, for assisting to quell a powerful northern savage of the name of Gillespie.[231] William was the son of Hugh Freskin, who acquired the district of Sutherland by the forfeiture of the Earl of Caithness for rebellion in 1197. Hugh was the grandson of Freskin the Fleming, who came into Scotland in the reign of David I., and obtained from that prince the lands of Strathbrock in Linlithgowshire, also, the lands of Duffus and others in Moray.[232] His son, William, was a constant attendant on King William the Lion, during his frequent expeditions into Moray, and assumed the name of William de Moravia. He died towards the end of the 12th century. His son, Hugh, got the district of Sutherland, as already mentioned. Hugh’s son, “Willielmus dominus de Sutherlandia filius et hæres quondam Hugonis Freskin,” is usually reckoned the first Earl of Sutherland, although Sir Robert Gordon, the family historian, puts it three generations farther back.

The date of the creation of the title is not known; but from an indenture executed in 1275, in which Gilbert, bishop of Caithness, makes a solemn composition of an affair that had been long in debate betwixt his predecessors in the see and the noble men, William of famous memory, and William, his son, Earls of Sutherland, it is clear that there existed an Earl of Sutherland betwixt 1222, the year of Gilbert’s consecration as bishop, and 1245, the year of his death, and it is on the strength of this deed that the representative of the house claims the rank of premier earl of Scotland, with the date 1228.

Earl William died at Dunrobin[233] in 1248. His son, William, second earl, succeeded to the title in his infancy. He was one of the Scots nobles who attended the parliament of Alexander III. at Scone, 5th February 1284, when the succession to the crown of Scotland was settled, and he sat in the great convention at Bingham, 12th March 1290. He was one of the eighteen Highland chiefs who fought at the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, on the side of Bruce, and he subscribed the famous letter of the Scots nobles to the Pope, 6th April 1320. He died in 1325, having enjoyed the title for the long period of 77 years.

His son, Kenneth, the third earl, fell at the battle of Halidon-hill in 1333, valiantly supporting the cause of David II. With a daughter, Eustach, he had two sons, William, fourth earl, and Nicholas, ancestor of the Lords Duffus.

William, fourth earl, married the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Robert I., by his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgo, and he made grants of land in the counties of Inverness and Aberdeen to powerful and influential persons, to win their support of his eldest son, John’s claim to the succession to the crown. John was selected by his uncle, David II., as heir to the throne, in preference to the high-steward, who had married the Princess Marjory, but he died at Lincoln in England in 1361, while a hostage there for the payment of the king’s ransom. His father, Earl William, was one of the commissioners to treat for the release of King David in 1351, also on 13th June 1354, and again in 1357. He was for some years detained in England as a hostage for David’s observance of the treaty on his release from his long captivity. The earl did not obtain his full liberty till 20th March 1367. He died at Dunrobin in Sutherland in 1370. His son, William, fifth earl, was present at the surprise of Berwick by the Scots in November 1384.

With their neighbours, the Mackays, the clan Sutherland were often at feud, and in all their contests with them they generally came off victorious.[234]

John, seventh earl, resigned the earldom in favour of John, his son and heir, 22d February 1456, reserving to himself the liferent of it, and died in 1460. He had married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Baillie of Lamington, Lanarkshire, and by her had four sons and two daughters. The sons were--1. Alexander, who predeceased his father; 2. John, eighth Earl of Sutherland; 3. Nicholas; 4. Thomas Beg. The elder daughter, Lady Jane, married Sir James Dunbar of Cumnock, and was the mother of Gawin Dunbar, bishop of Aberdeen.

John, eighth earl, died in 1508. He had married Lady Margaret Macdonald, eldest daughter of Alexander, Earl of Ross, Lord of the Isles, and by her, who was drowned crossing the ferry of Uness, he had two sons--John ninth earl, and Alexander, who died young, and a daughter, Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland.

The ninth earl died, without issue, in 1514, when the succession devolved upon his sister Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland in her own right. This lady had married Adam Gordon of Aboyne, second son of George, second Earl of Huntly, high-chancellor of Scotland, and in his wife’s right, according to the custom of the age, he was styled Earl of Sutherland. The Earl of Sutherland, when far advanced in life, retired for the most part to Strathbogie and Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, to spend the remainder of his days among his friends, and intrusted the charge of the country to his eldest son, Alexander Gordon, master of Sutherland, a young man of great intrepidity and talent; and on the countess’ resignation, a charter of the earldom was granted to him by King James V., on 1st December 1527. She died in 1535, and her husband in 1537. Their issue were--1. Alexander, master of Sutherland, who was infeft in the earldom in 1527, under the charter above mentioned, and died in 1529, leaving, by his wife, Lady Jane Stewart, eldest daughter of the second Earl of Athole, three sons--John, Alexander, and William, and two daughters; 2. John Gordon; 3. Adam Gordon, killed at the battle of Pinkie, 10th September 1547; 4. Gilbert Gordon of Gartay, who married Isobel Sinclair, daughter of the laird of Dunbeath.

Alexander’s eldest son, John, born about 1525, succeeded his grandfather as eleventh earl. He was lieutenant of Moray in 1547 and 1548, and with George, Earl of Huntly, was selected to accompany the queen regent to France in September 1550.

On the charge of having engaged in the rebellion of the Earl of Huntly in 1562, the Earl of Sutherland was forfeited, 28th May 1563, when he retired to Flanders. He returned to Scotland in 1565, and his forfeiture was rescinded by act of parliament, 19th April 1567. He and his countess, who was then in a state of pregnancy, were poisoned at Helmsdale Castle by Isobel Sinclair, the wife of the earl’s uncle, Gilbert Gordon of Gartay, and the cousin of the Earl of Caithness, and died five days afterwards at Dunrobin Castle. This happened in July 1567, when the earl was in his 42d year.[235] Their only son, Alexander, master of Sutherland, then in his fifteenth year, fortunately escaped the same fate.

The eleventh earl, styled the good Earl John, was thrice married--1st, to Lady Elizabeth Campbell, only daughter of the third Earl of Argyll, relict of James, Earl of Moray, natural son of James IV.; 2dly, to Lady Helen Stewart, daughter of the third Earl of Lennox, relict of the fifth Earl of Errol; and 3dly, to Marion, eldest daughter of the fourth Lord Seton, relict of the fourth Earl of Menteith. This was the lady who was poisoned with him. He had issue by his second wife only--two sons and three daughters. John, the elder son, died an infant. Alexander, the younger, was the twelfth Earl of Sutherland.

Being under age when he succeeded to the earldom, the ward of this young nobleman was granted to his eldest sister, Lady Margaret Gordon, who committed it to the care of John, Earl of Athole. The latter sold the wardship to George, Earl of Caithness, the enemy of his house. Having by treachery got possession of the castle of Skibo, in which the young earl resided, he seized his person and carried him off to Caithness, where he forced him to marry his daughter, Lady Barbara Sinclair, a profligate woman of double his own age. When he attained his majority he divorced her. In 1569, he escaped from the Earl of Caithness, who had taken up his residence at Dunrobin Castle and formed a design upon his life.

In 1583 he obtained from the Earl of Huntly, the king’s lieutenant in the north, a grant of the superiority of Strathnaver, and of the heritable sheriffship of Sutherland and Strathnaver, which last was granted in lieu of the lordship of Aboyne. This grant was confirmed by his majesty in a charter under the great seal, by which Sutherland and Strathnaver were disjoined and dismembered from the sheriffdom of Inverness. The earl died at Dunrobin, 6th December 1594, in his 43d year. Having divorced Lady Barbara Sinclair in 1573, he married, secondly, Lady Jean Gordon, third daughter of the fourth Earl of Huntly, high-chancellor of Scotland, who had been previously married to the Earl of Bothwell, but repudiated to enable that ambitious and profligate nobleman to marry Queen Mary. She subsequently married Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne, whom she also survived. To the Earl of Sutherland she had, with two daughters, four sons--1. John, thirteenth earl; 2. Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon; 3. Hon. Adam Gordon; 4. Hon. Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, the historian of the family of Sutherland, created a baronet of Nova Scotia, being the first of that order, 28th May 1625.

John, thirteenth Earl of Sutherland, was born 20th July 1576. Many details concerning him will be found in the former part of this work. He died at Dornoch, 11th September 1615, aged 40. By his countess, Lady Anna Elphinston, he had, with two daughters, four sons, namely--1. Patrick, master of Sutherland, who died young; 2. John, fourteenth earl; 3. Hon. Adam Gordon, who entered the Swedish service, and was killed at the battle of Nordlingen, 27th August 1634, aged 22; 4. Hon. George Posthumus Gordon, born after his father’s death, 9th February 1616, a lieutenant-colonel in the army.

John, fourteenth Earl of Sutherland, born 4th March 1609, was only six years old when he succeeded his father, and during his minority his uncle, Sir Robert Gordon, was tutor of Sutherland. In this capacity the latter was much engaged in securing the peace of the country, so often broken by the lawless proceedings of the Earl of Caithness. By Sir Robert’s judicious management of the affairs of the house of Sutherland, his nephew, the earl, on attaining his majority, found the hostility of the enemy of his house, the Earl of Caithness, either neutralised, or rendered no longer dangerous. In 1637, the earl joined the supplicants against the service book, and on the breaking out of the civil war in the following year, espoused the liberal cause. In 1641 he was appointed by parliament a privy councillor for life, and in 1644 he was sent north with a commission for disarming malignants, as the royalists were called. In 1645 he was one of the committee of estates. The same year he joined General Hurry, with his retainers at Inverness, just immediately before the battle of Auldearn. In 1650 he accompanied General David Leslie when he was sent by the parliament against the royalists in the north.

On the Marquis of Montrose’s arrival in Caithness, the earl assembled all his countrymen to oppose his advance into Sutherland. Montrose, however, had secured the important pass of the Ord, and on his entering Sutherland, the earl, not conceiving himself strong enough to resist him, retired with about 300 men into Ross. In August of the same year, the earl set off to Edinburgh, with 1,000 men, to join the forces under General Leslie, collected to oppose Cromwell, but was too late for the battle of Dunbar, which was fought before his arrival. During the Protectorate of Cromwell the earl lived retired. He is commonly said to have died in 1663, but the portrait of John, who must be this earl, prefixed to Gordon’s history of the family (Ed. 1813) has upon it “_Aetatis Suae_ 60: 1669.” This would seem to prove that he was then alive.

His son, George, fifteenth earl, died 4th March 1703, aged 70, and was buried at Holyrood-house, where a monument was erected to his memory. The son of this nobleman, John, sixteenth earl, married, when Lord Strathnaver, Helen, second daughter of William, Lord Cochrane, sister of the Viscountess Dundee. He was one of the sixteen representatives of the Scots peerage chosen in the last Scots parliament in 1707, and subsequently three times re-elected. His services in quelling the rebellion were acknowledged by George I., who, in June 1716, invested him with the order of the Thistle, and in the following September settled a pension of £1,200 per annum upon him. He figured conspicuously both as a statesman and a soldier, and obtained leave to add to his armorial bearings the double “tressure circum-fleur-de-lire,” to indicate his descent from the royal family of Bruce. His lordship died at London, 27th June 1733.

His son, William, Lord Strathnaver, predeceased his father 19th July 1720. He had five sons and two daughters. His two eldest sons died young. William, the third son, became seventeenth Earl of Sutherland. The elder daughter, the Hon. Helen Sutherland, was the wife of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. The younger, the Hon. Janet Sutherland, married George Sinclair, Esq. of Ulbster, and was the mother of the celebrated Sir John Sinclair, baronet.

William, seventeenth Earl of Sutherland, contributed greatly to the suppression of the rebellion in the north. Under the heritable jurisdictions’ abolition act of 1747, he had £1,000 allowed him for the redeemable sheriffship of Sutherland. He died in France, December 7, 1750, aged 50. By his countess, Lady Elizabeth Wemyss, eldest daughter of the third Earl of Wemyss, he had, with a daughter, Lady Elizabeth, wife of her cousin, Hon. James Wemyss of Wemyss, a son, William.

The son, William, eighteenth Earl of Sutherland, born May 29, 1735, was an officer in the army, and in 1759, when an invasion was expected, he raised a battalion of infantry, of which he was constituted lieutenant-colonel. He was appointed aide-de-camp to the king, with the rank of colonel in the army, 20th April 1763. He was one of the sixteen representative Scots peers, and died at Bath, 16th June 1766, aged 31. He had married at Edinburgh, 14th April 1761, Mary, eldest daughter and coheiress of William Maxwell, Esq. of Preston, stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and had two daughters, Lady Catherine and Lady Elizabeth. The former, born 24th May 1764, died at Dunrobin Castle, 3d January 1766. The loss of their daughter so deeply affected the earl and countess that they went to Bath, in the hope that the amusements of that place would dispel their grief. There, however, the earl was seized with a fever, and the countess devoted herself so entirely to the care of her husband, sitting up with him for twenty-one days and nights without retiring to bed, that her health was affected, and she died 1st June the same year, sixteen days before his lordship. Their bodies were brought to Scotland, and interred in Holyrood-house.

Their only surviving daughter, Elizabeth, born at Leven Lodge, near Edinburgh, 24th May 1765, succeeded as Countess of Sutherland, when little more than a year old. She was placed under the guardianship of John, Duke of Athole, Charles, Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Sir Adam Fergusson of Kilkerran, and Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes, baronets, and John Mackenzie, Esq. of Delvin. A sharp contest arose for the title, her right to the earldom being disputed on the ground that it could not legally descend to a female heir. Her opponents were Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun and Letterfourie, baronet, and George Sutherland, Esq. of Fors. Lord Hailes drew up a paper for her ladyship, entitled “Additional Case for Elizabeth, claiming the title and dignity of Countess of Sutherland,” which evinced great ability, accuracy, and depth of research. The House of Lords decided in her favour, 21st March. 1771. The countess, the nineteenth in succession to the earldom, married 4th September 1785, George Granville Leveson Gower, Viscount of Trentham, eldest son of Earl Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, by his second wife, Lady Louisa Egerton, daughter of the first Duke of Bridgewater. His lordship succeeded to his father’s titles, and became the second Marquis of Stafford. On 14th January 1833 he was created Duke of Sutherland, and died 19th July, the same year. The Duchess of Sutherland, countess in her own right, thenceforth styled Duchess-Countess of Sutherland, held the earldom during the long period of 72 years and seven months, and died in January 1839.

Her eldest son, George Granville, born in 1786, succeeded his father as second Duke of Sutherland, in 1833, and his mother in the Scottish titles, in 1839. He married in 1823, Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana, third daughter of the sixth Earl of Carlisle; issue--four sons and seven daughters. His grace died Feb. 28, 1861, and was succeeded by his eldest son, George Granville William. The second duke’s eldest daughter married in 1844, the Duke of Argyll; the second daughter married in 1843, Lord Blantyre; the third daughter married in 1847, the Marquis of Kildare, eldest son of the Duke of Leinster.

George Granville William, third Duke of Sutherland, previously styled Marquis of Stafford and Lord Strathnaver, born Dec. 19, 1828, married in 1849, Anne, only child of John Hay Mackenzie, Esq. of Cromartie and Newhall, and niece of Sir William Gibson Craig, Bart.; issue--three sons and two daughters. Sons--1. George Granville, Earl Gower, born July 25, 1850, died July 5, 1858; 2. Cromartie, Marquis of Stafford, born 20th July 1851; 3. Lord Francis, Viscount Tarbet, born August 3, 1852. Daughters, Lady Florence and Lady Alexandra; for the latter the Princess of Wales was sponsor.

There are a number of clans not dignified by Mr Skene with separate notice, probably because he considers them subordinate branches of other clans. The principal of these, however, we shall shortly notice here, before giving an account of four important clans located in the Highlands, which are generally admitted to be of foreign origin, at least so far as their names and chiefs are concerned.

GUNN.

As we have given in minute detail the history of the somewhat turbulent clan Gunn in the first part of the work, our notice of it here will be brief.

The clan, a martial and hardy, though not a numerous race, originally belonged to Caithness, but in the sixteenth century they settled in Sutherland. Mr Smibert thinks they are perhaps among the very purest remnants of the Gael to be found about Sutherlandshire and the adjoining parts. “It is probable,” he says, “that they belong to the same stock which produced the great body of the Sutherland population. But tradition gives the chieftains at least a Norse origin. They are said to have been descended from _Gun_, or _Gunn_, or _Guin_, second son of Olaus, or Olav, the Black, one of the Norwegian kings of Man and the Isles, who died 18th June 1237. One tradition gives them a settlement in Caithness more than a century earlier, deducing their descent from Gun, the second of three sons of Olaf, described as a man of great bravery, who, in 1100, dwelt in the Orcadian isle of Græmsay. The above-mentioned _Gun_ or _Guin_ is said to have received from his grandfather on the mother’s side, Farquhar, Earl of Ross, the possessions in Caithness which long formed the patrimony of his descendants: the earliest stronghold of the chief in that county being Halbury castle, or Easter Clythe, situated on a precipitous rock, overhanging the sea. From a subsequent chief who held the office of coroner, it was called _Crowner Gun’s Castle_. It may be mentioned here that the name _Gun_ is the same as the Welsh _Gwynn_, and the Manx _Gawne_. It was originally Gun, but is now spelled Gunn.”

The clan Gunn continued to extend their possessions in Caithness till about the middle of the fifteenth century, when, in consequence of their deadly feuds with the Keiths, and other neighbouring clans, they found it necessary to remove into Sutherland, where they settled on the lands of Kildonan, under the protection of the Earls of Sutherland, from whom they had obtained them. Mixed up as they were with the clan feuds of Caithness and Sutherland, and at war with the Mackays as well as the Keiths, the history of the clan up to this time is full of incidents which have more the character of romance than reality. In one place Sir Robert Gordon, alluding to “the inveterat deidlie feud betuein the clan Gun and the Slaightean-Aberigh,”--a branch of the Mackays,--he says: “The long, the many, the horrible encounters which happened between these two trybes, with the bloodshed and infinit spoils committed in every part of the diocy of Catteynes by them and their associats, are of so disordered and troublesome memorie,” that he declines to give details.

Previous to their removal into Sutherland, George Gun, commonly called the _Chruner_, or Coroner, and by the Highlanders, _Fear N’m Braisteach-more_, from the great brooch which he wore as the badge of his office of coroner, was killed by the Keiths of Caithness, as formerly narrated.

The Crowner’s eldest son, James, succeeded as chief, and he it was who, with his family and the greater portion of his clan, removed into Sutherland. The principal dwelling-house of the chiefs was, thereafter, Killernan, in the parish of Kildonan, until the house was accidentally destroyed by fire about 1690. From this chief, the patronymic of Mac-Sheumais, or MacKeamish, (that is, the son of James,) which then became the Gaelic sept-name of the chiefs, is derived. From one of the sons of the Crowner, named William, are descended the Wilsons of Caithness, (as from a subsequent chief of the same name, the Williamsons,) and from another, Henry, the Hendersons. Another son, Robert, who was killed with his father, was the progenitor of the Gun Robsons; and another son, John, also slain by the Keiths, of the Gun MacEans, or MacIans, that is Johnsons, of Caithness. The Gallies are also of this clan, a party of whom settling in Ross-shire being designated as coming from _Gall’-aobh_, the stranger’s side.

William Gunn, the eighth MacKeamish, an officer in the army, was killed in battle in India, without leaving issue, when the chiefship devolved on Hector, great-grandson of George, second son of Alexander, the fifth MacKeamish, to whom he was served nearest male heir, on the 31st May 1803, and George Gunn, Esq. of Rhives, county of Sutherland, his only son, became, on his death, chief of the clan Gunn, and the tenth MacKeamish.

MACLAURIN.

MACLAURIN, more commonly spelled Maclaren, is the name of a small clan belonging to Perthshire, and called in Gaelic the _clann_ Labhrin. The name is said to have been derived from the district of Lorn, in Argyleshire, the Gaelic orthography of which is Lubhrin. The Maclaurins bear the word _Dalriada_, as a motto above their coat of arms.

MACLAURIN OR MACLAREN.

From Argyleshire the tribe of Laurin moved into Perthshire, having, it is said, acquired from Kenneth Macalpin, after his conquest of the Picts in the 9th century, the districts of Balquhidder and Strathearn, and three brothers are mentioned as having got assigned to them in that territory the lands of Bruach, Auchleskin, and Stank. In the churchyard of Balquhidder, celebrated as containing the grave of Rob Roy, the burial places of their different families are marked off separately, so as to correspond with the situation which these estates bear to each other, a circumstance which so far favours the tradition regarding them.

When the earldom of Strathearn became vested in the crown in 1370, the Maclaurins were reduced from the condition of proprietors to that of “kyndly” or perpetual tenants, which they continued to be till 1508, when it was deemed expedient that this Celtic holding should be changed, and the lands set in feu, “for increase of policie and augmentation of the king’s rental.”

About 1497, some of the clan Laurin having carried off the cattle from the Braes of Lochaber, the Macdonalds followed the spoilers, and, overtaking them in Glenurchy, after a sharp fight, recovered the “lifting.” The Maclaurins straightway sought the assistance of their kinsman, Dugal Stewart of Appin, who at once joined them with his followers, and a conflict took place, when both Dugal and Macdonald of Keppoch, the chiefs of their respective clans, were among the slain. This Dugal was the first of the Stewarts of Appin. He was an illegitimate son of John Stewart, third Lord of Lorn, by a lady of the clan Laurin, and in 1469 when he attempted, by force of arms, to obtain possession of his father’s lands, he was assisted by the Maclaurins, 130 of whom fell in a battle that took place at the foot of Bendoran, a mountain in Glenurchy.

The clan Laurin were the strongest sept in Balquhidder, which was called “the country of the Maclaurins.” Although there are few families of the name there now, so numerous were they at one period that none dared enter the church until the Maclaurins had taken their seats. This invidious right claimed by them often led to unseemly brawls and fights at the church door, and lives were sometimes lost in consequence. In 1532, Sir John Maclaurin, vicar of Balquhidder, was killed in one of these quarrels, and several of his kinsmen, implicated in the deed, were outlawed.

A deadly feud existed between the Maclaurins and their neighbours, the Macgregors of Rob Roy’s tribe. In the 16th century, the latter slaughtered no fewer than eighteen householders of the Maclaurin name, with the whole of their families, and took possession of the farms which had belonged to them. The deed was not investigated till 1604, forty-six years afterwards, when it was thus described in their trial for the slaughter of the Colquhouns: “And siclyk, John M’Coull cheire, ffor airt and pairt of the crewall murthour and burning of auchtene houshalders of the clan Lawren, thair wyves and bairns, committit fourtie sax zeir syne, or thairby.” The verdict was that he was “clene, innocent, and acquit of the said crymes.”[236] The hill farm of Invernenty, on “The Braes of Balquhidder,” was one of the farms thus forcibly occupied by the Macgregors, although the property of a Maclaurin family, and in the days of Rob Roy, two centuries afterwards, the aid of Stewart of Appin was called in to replace the Maclaurins in their own, which he did at the head of 200 of his men. All these farms, however, are now the property of the chief of clan Gregor, having been purchased about 1798 from the commissioners of the forfeited estates.

The Maclaurins were out in the rebellion of 1745. According to President Forbes, they were followers of the Murrays of Athole, but although some of them might have been so, the majority of the clan fought for the Pretender with the Stewarts of Appin under Stewart of Ardsheil.

The chiefship was claimed by the family to which belonged Colin Maclaurin, the eminent mathematician and philosopher, and his son, John Maclaurin, Lord Dreghorn. In the application given in for the latter to the Lyon Court, he proved his descent from a family which had long been in possession of the island of Tiree, one of the Argyleshire Hebrides.

MACRAE.

MACRAE (MACRA or MACRATH)[237] is the name of a Ross-shire clan at one time very numerous on the shores of Kintail, but now widely scattered through Scotland and the colonies, more especially Canada. The oldest form of the name “M’Rath” signifies “son-of-good-luck.” The clan is generally considered to be of pure Gaelic stock, although its earliest traditions point to an Irish origin. They are said to have come over with Colin Fitzgerald, the founder of the clan Mackenzie, of whose family they continued through their whole history the warm friends and adherents, so much so that they were jocularly called “Seaforth’s shirt,” and under his leadership they fought at the battle of Largs, in 1263. They settled first in the Aird of Lovat, but subsequently emigrated into Glenshiel, in the district of Kintail. At the battle of Auldearn, in May 1645, the Macraes fought under the “Caber-Fey,” on the side of Montrose, where they lost a great number of men. The chief of the Macraes is Macrae of Inverinate, in Kintail, whose family since about the year 1520 held the honourable post of constables of Islandonan. A MS. genealogical account of the clans, written by the Rev. John Macrae, minister of Dingwall, who died in 1704, was formerly in possession of Lieut.-Col. Sir John Macrae of Ardintoul, and is now possessed by the present head of the Inverinate family, Colin Macrae, Esq., W.S., who has also a copy of a treaty of friendship between the Campbells of Craignish and the Macraes of Kintail, dated 1702. This history contains many interesting stories, descriptive of the great size, strength, and courage for which the clan was remarkable. One Duncan Mòr, a man of immense strength, contributed largely to the defeat of the Macdonalds at the battle of Park, in 1464, and it was said of him that, though engaged in many conflicts and always victorious, he never came off without a wound; and another Duncan, who lived in the beginning of the 18th century, was possessed of so great strength that he is said to have carried for some distance a stone of huge size, and laid it down on the farm of Auchnangart, where it is still to be seen. He was the author of several poetical pieces, and was killed with many of his clan at Sheriffmuir, in 1715, his two brothers falling at his side. His sword, long preserved in the Tower of London, was shown as “the great Highlander’s sword.”

Both males and females of the Macraes are said to have evinced a strong taste, not only for severe literary studies, but for the gentler arts of poetry and music. From the beginning of the 15th century, one of the Inverinate family always held the office of vicar of Kintail; and John, the first vicar, was much revered for his learning, which he acquired with the monks of Beauly. Farquhar Macrae, born 1580, who entered the church, is said to have been a great Latin scholar. It is told of this Farquhar, that on his first visit to the island of Lewes, he had to baptize the whole population under forty years of age, no minister being resident on the island.

* * * * *

We shall here give a short account of the Buchanans and Colquhouns, because, as Smibert says of the latter, they have ever been placed among the clans practically, although the neighbouring Lowlanders gave to them early Saxon names. It is probable that primitively they were both of Gaelic origin.

BUCHANAN.

The BUCHANANS belong to a numerous clan in Stirlingshire, and the country on the north side of Loch Lomond. The reputed founder of the clan was Anselan, son of O’Kyan, king of Ulster, in Ireland, who is said to have been compelled to leave his native country by the incursions of the Danes, and take refuge in Scotland. He landed, with some attendants, on the northern coast of Argyleshire, near the Lennox, about the year 1016, and having, according to the family tradition, in all such cases made and provided, lent his assistance to King Malcolm the Second in repelling his old enemies the Danes, on two different occasions of their arrival in Scotland, he received from that king for his services a grant of land in the north of Scotland. The improbable character of this genealogy is manifested by its farther stating that the aforesaid Anselan married the heiress of the lands of Buchanan, a lady named Dennistoun; for the Dennistouns deriving their name from lands given to a family of the name of Danziel, who came into Scotland with Alan, the father of the founder of the Abbey of Paisley, and the first _dapifer_, seneschal, or steward of Scotland, no heiress of that name could have been in Scotland until long after the period here referred to. It is more probable that a portion of what afterwards became the estate of Buchanan formed a part of some royal grant as being connected with the estates of the Earls of Lennox, whom Skene and Napier have established to have been remotely connected with the royal family of the Canmore line, and to have been in the first instance administrators, on the part of the crown, of the lands which were afterwards bestowed upon them.

The name of Buchanan is territorial, and is now that of a parish in Stirlingshire, which was anciently called Inchcaileoch (“old woman’s island”), from an island of that name in Loch Lomond, on which in earlier ages there was a nunnery, and latterly the parish church for a century after the Reformation. In 1621 a detached part of the parish of Luss, which comprehends the lands of the family of Buchanan, was included in this parish, when the chapel of Buchanan was used for the only place of worship, and gave the name to the whole parish.

Anselan (in the family genealogies styled the third of that name) the seventh laird of Buchanan, and the sixth in descent from the above-named Irish prince, but not unlikely to be the first of the name, which is Norman French, is dignified in the same records with the magniloquent appellation of seneschal or chamberlain to Malcolm the first Earl of Levenax (as Lennox was then called). In 1225, this Anselan obtained from the same earl a charter of a small island in Loch Lomond called Clareinch--witnesses Dougal, Gilchrist, and Amalyn, the earl’s three brothers--the name of which island afterwards became the rallying cry of the Buchanans. He had three sons, viz., Methlen, said by Buchanan of Auchmar to have been ancestor of the MacMillans; Colman, ancestor of the MacColmans; and his successor Gilbert.

His eldest son, Gilbert, or Gillebrid, appears to have borne the surname of Buchanan.

Sir Maurice Buchanan, grandson of Gilbert, and son of a chief of the same name, received from Donald, Earl of Lennox, a charter of the lands of Sallochy, with confirmation of the upper part of the carrucate of Buchanan. Sir Maurice also obtained a charter of confirmation of the lands of Buchanan from King David II. in the beginning of his reign.

Sir Maurice de Buchanan the second, above mentioned, married a daughter of Menteith of Rusky, and had a son, Walter de Buchanan, who had a charter of confirmation of some of his lands of Buchanan from Robert the Second, in which he is designed the king’s “consanguineus,” or cousin. His eldest son, John, married Janet, daughter and sole heiress of John Buchanan of Leny, fourth in descent from Allan already noticed. John, who died before his father, had three sons, viz., Sir Alexander, Walter, and John, who inherited the lands of Leny, and carried on that family.

Sir Alexander died unmarried, and the second son, Sir Walter, succeeded to the estate of Buchanan.

This Sir Walter de Buchanan married Isabel, daughter of Murdoch, Duke of Albany, governor of Scotland, by Isabel, countess of Lennox, in her own right. With a daughter, married to Gray of Foulis, ancestor of Lord Gray, he had three sons, viz., Patrick, his successor; Maurice, treasurer to the Princess Margaret, the daughter of King James I., and Dauphiness of France, with whom he left Scotland; and Thomas, founder of the Buchanans of Carbeth.

The eldest son, Patrick, acquired a part of Strathyre in 1455, and had a charter under the great seal of his estate of Buchanan, dated in 1460. He had two sons and a daughter, Anabella, married to her cousin, James Stewart of Baldorrans, grandson of Murdoch, Duke of Albany. Their younger son, Thomas Buchanan, was, in 1482, founder of the house of Drumakill, whence, in the third generation, came the celebrated George Buchanan. Patrick’s elder son, Walter Buchanan of that ilk, married a daughter of Lord Graham, and by her had two sons, Patrick and John, and two daughters, one of them married to the laird of Lamond, and the other to the laird of Ardkinglass.

John Buchanan, the younger son, succeeded by testament to Menzies of Arnprior, and was the facetious “King of Kippen,” and faithful ally of James V. The way in which the laird of Arnprior got the name of “King of Kippen” is thus related by a tradition which Sir Walter Scott has introduced into his _Tales of a Grandfather_:--“When James the Fifth travelled in disguise, he used a name which was known only to some of his principal nobility and attendants. He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of Ballengeich. Ballengeich is a steep pass which leads down behind the castle of Stirling. Once upon a time when the court was feasting in Stirling, the king sent for some venison from the neighbouring hills. The deer was killed and put on horses’ backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily they had to pass the castle gates of Arnprior, belonging to a chief of the Buchanans, who chanced to have a considerable number of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather short of victuals, though they had more than enough of liquor. The chief, seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, seized on it, and to the expostulations of the keepers, who told him it belonged to King James, he answered insolently, that if James was king in Scotland, he (Buchanan) was king in Kippen; being the name of the district in which Arnprior lay. On hearing what had happened, the king got on horseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buchanan’s house, where he found a strong fierce-looking Highlander, with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. This grim warder refused the king admittance, saying that the laird of Arnprior was at dinner, and would not be disturbed. ‘Yet go up to the company, my good friend,’ said the king, ‘and tell him that the Goodman of Ballengeich is come to feast with the King of Kippen.’ The porter went grumbling into the house, and told his master that there was a fellow with a red beard at the gate, who called himself the Goodman of Ballengeich, who said he was come to dine with the King of Kippen. As soon as Buchanan heard these words, he knew that the king was come in person, and hastened down to kneel at James’s feet, and to ask forgiveness for his insolent behaviour. But the king, who only meant to give him a fright, forgave him freely, and, going into the castle, feasted on his own venison which Buchanan had intercepted. Buchanan of Arnprior was ever afterwards called the King of Kippen.”[238] He was killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547.

The elder son, Patrick, who fell on Flodden field, during his father’s lifetime, had married a daughter of the Earl of Argyll. She bore to him two sons and two daughters. The younger son, Walter, in 1519, conveyed to his son Walter the lands of Spittal, and was thus the founder of that house. On the 14th December of that year, he had a charter from his father of the temple-lands of Easter-Catter.

The elder son, George Buchanan of that ilk, succeeded his grandfather, and was sheriff of Dumbartonshire at the critical epoch of 1561. By Margaret, daughter of Edmonstone of Duntreath, he had a son, John, who died before his father, leaving a son. By a second lady, Janet, daughter of Cunninghame of Craigans, he had William, founder of the now extinct house of Auchmar.

John Buchanan, above mentioned as dying before his father, George Buchanan of that ilk, was twice married, first to the Lord Livingston’s daughter, by whom he had one son, George, who succeeded his grandfather. The son, Sir George Buchanan, married Mary Graham, daughter of the Earl of Monteith, and had, with two daughters, a son, Sir John Buchanan of that ilk. Sir John married Anabella Erskine, daughter of Adam, commendator of Cambuskenneth, a son of the Master of Mar. He had a son, George, his successor, and a daughter married to Campbell of Rahein.

Sir George Buchanan the son married Elizabeth Preston, daughter of the laird of Craigmillar. Sir George was taken prisoner at Inverkeithing, in which state he died in the end of 1651, leaving, with three daughters, one son, John, the last laird of Buchanan, who was twice married, but had no male issue. By his second wife, Jean Pringle, daughter of Mr Andrew Pringle, a minister, he had a daughter Janet, married to Henry Buchanan of Leny. John, the last laird, died in December 1682. His estate was sold by his creditors, and purchased by the ancestor of the Duke of Montrose.

The barons or lairds of Buchanan built a castle in Stirlingshire, where the present Buchanan house stands, formerly called the Peel of Buchanan. Part of it exists, forming the charter-room. A more modern house was built by these chiefs, adjoining the east side. This mansion came into the possession of the first Duke of Montrose, who made several additions to it, as did also subsequent dukes, and it is now the chief seat of that ducal family in Scotland.

The principal line of the Buchanans becoming, as above shown, extinct in 1682, the representation of the family devolved on Buchanan of AUCHMAR. This line became, in its turn, extinct in 1816, and, in the absence of other competitors, the late Dr Francis Hamilton-Buchanan of Bardowie, Spittal, and Leny, as heir-male of Walter, first of the family of Spittal, established in 1826 his claims as chief of the clan.

The last lineal male descendant of the Buchanans of Leny was Henry Buchanan, about 1723, whose daughter and heiress, Catherine, married Thomas Buchanan of Spittal, an officer in the Dutch service, who took for his second wife, Elizabeth, youngest daughter of John Hamilton of Bardowie, the sole survivor of her family, and by her he had four sons and two daughters. Their eldest son John, born in 1758, succeeded to the estate of Bardowie, and assumed the additional name of Hamilton, but dying without male issue, was succeeded by his brother, the above named Dr Francis Hamilton-Buchanan.

There were at one time so many heritors of the name of Buchanan, that it is said the laird of Buchanan could, in a summer’s day, call fifty heritors of his own surname to his house, upon any occasion, and all of them might with convenience return to their respective residences before night, the most distant of their homes not being above ten miles from Buchanan Castle.

COLQUHOUN.

The territory of the COLQUHOUNS is in Dumbartonshire, and the principal families of the name are Colquhoun of Colquhoun and Luss, the chief of the clan, a baronet of Scotland and Nova Scotia, created in 1704, and of Great Britain in 1786; Colquhoun of Killermont and Garscadden; Colquhoun of Ardenconnel; and Colquhoun of Glenmillan. There was likewise Colquhoun of Tilliquhoun, a baronet of Scotland and Nova Scotia (1625), but this family is extinct.

The origin of the name is territorial. One tradition deduces the descent of the first possessor from a younger son of the old Earls of Lennox, because of the similarity of their armorial bearings. It is certain that they were anciently vassals of that potent house.

The immediate ancestor of the family of Luss was Humphry de Kilpatrick, who, in the reign of Alexander II., not later than 1246, obtained from Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, a grant of the lands and barony of Colquhoun, in the parish of Old or West Kilpatrick, _pro servitio unius militis_, &c., and in consequence assumed the name of Colquhoun, instead of his own.

His grandson, Ingelram, third Colquhoun, lived in the reign of Alexander III.

His son, Humphry de Colquhoun, is witness in a charter of Malcolm, fifth Earl of Lennox, in favour of Sir John de Luss,[239] between the years 1292-1333. The following remarkable reference to the construction of a house _ad opus Culquhanorum_, by order of King Robert Bruce, is extracted from the _Compotum Constabularii de Cardross_, vol. i., in the accounts of the Great Chamberlains of Scotland, under date 30th July 1329, as quoted by Mr Tytler in the appendix to the second volume of his History of Scotland: “Item, in construccione cujusdam domus ad opus _Culquhanorum_ Domini Regis ibidem, 10 solidi.” Mr Tytler in a note says that _Culquhanorum_ is “an obscure word, which occurs nowhere else--conjectured by a learned friend to be ‘keepers of the dogs,’ from the Gaelic root _Gillen-au-con_--abbreviated, _Gillecon_, Culquhoun.”

Sir Robert de Colquhoun, supposed by Mr Fraser, the family historian, to be fifth in descent from the first Humphry, and son of a Humphry, the fourth of Colquhoun, in the reign of David Bruce, married in or previous to the year 1368 the daughter and sole heiress (known in the family tradition as “The Fair Maid of Luss,”) of Godfrey de Luss, lord of Luss, head or chief of an ancient family of that name, and the sixth in a direct male line from Malduin, dean of Lennox, who, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, received from Alwyn, second Earl of Lennox, a charter of the lands of Luss. The Luss territories lie in the mountainous but beautiful and picturesque district on the margin of Loch Lomond. Sir Robert was designed “dominus de Colquhoun and de Luss,” in a charter dated in 1368; since which time the family have borne the designation of Colquhoun of Colquhoun and Luss. He is also witness in a charter of the lands of Auchmar by Walter of Faslane, Lord of Lennox, to Walter de Buchanan in 1373. He had four sons, namely--Sir Humphry, his heir; Robert, first of the family of Camstraddan, from whom several other families of the name of Colquhoun in Dumbartonshire are descended; Robert mentioned in the Camstraddan charter as “frater junior;” and Patrick, who is mentioned in a charter from his brother Sir Humphry to his other brother Robert.

The eldest son, Sir Humphry, sixth of Colquhoun, and eighth of Luss, is a witness in three charters by Duncan, Earl of Lennox, in the years 1393, 1394, and 1395. He died in 1406, and left three sons and two daughters. Patrick, his youngest son, was ancestor of the Colquhouns of Glennis, from whom the Colquhouns of Barrowfield, Piemont, and others were descended. The second son, John, succeeded his eldest brother. The eldest son, Sir Robert, died in 1408, and was succeeded by his brother. Sir John Colquhoun was appointed governor of the castle of Dumbarton, by King James I., for his fidelity to that king during his imprisonment in England. From his activity in punishing the depredations of the Highlanders, who often committed great outrages in the low country of Dumbartonshire, he rendered himself obnoxious to them, and a plot was formed for his destruction. He received a civil message from some of their chiefs, desiring a friendly conference, in order to accommodate all their differences. Suspecting no treachery, he went out to meet them but slightly attended, and was immediately attacked by a numerous body of Islanders, under two noted robber-chiefs, Lachlan Maclean and Murdoch Gibson, and slain in Inchmurren, on Loch Lomond, in 1439. By his wife, Jean, daughter of Robert, Lord Erskine, he had a son, Malcolm, a youth of great promise. He died before his father, leaving a son, John, who succeeded his grandfather in 1439. This Sir John Colquhoun was one of the most distinguished men of his age in Scotland, and highly esteemed by King James III., from whom he got a charter in 1457 of the lands of Luss, Colquhoun, and Garscube, in Dumbartonshire, and of the lands of Glyn and Sauchie, in Stirlingshire, incorporating the whole into a free barony, to be called the Barony of Luss; and in the following year he obtained from the king a charter erecting into a free forest the lands of Rossdhu and Glenmachome. From 1465 to 1469 he held the high office of comptroller of the Exchequer, and was subsequently appointed sheriff principal of Dumbartonshire. In 1645 he got a grant of the lands of Kilmardinny, and in 1473 and in 1474, of Roseneath, Strone, &c. In 1474 he was appointed lord high chamberlain of Scotland, and immediately thereafter was nominated one of the ambassadors extraordinary to the Court of England, to negotiate a marriage between the Prince Royal of Scotland and the Princess Cicily, daughter of King Edward IV. By a royal charter dated 17th September 1477, he was constituted governor of the castle of Dumbarton for life. He was killed by a cannon-ball at the siege of Dumbarton Castle, probably in 1478. By his wife, daughter of Thomas, Lord Boyd, he had two sons and one daughter. His second son, Robert, was bred to the church, and was first rector of Kippen and Luss, and afterwards bishop of Argyle from 1473 to 1499. The daughter, Margaret, married Sir William Murray, seventh baron of Tullibardine (ancestor of the Dukes of Athole), and bore to him seventeen sons.

His eldest son, Sir Humphry Colquhoun, died in 1493, and was succeeded by his son, Sir John Colquhoun, who received the honour of knighthood from King James IV., and obtained a charter under the great seal of sundry lands and baronies in Dumbartonshire, dated 4th December 1506. On 11th July 1526 he and Patrick Colquhoun his son received a respite for assisting John, Earl of Lennox, in treasonably besieging, taking, and holding the castle of Dumbarton. He died before 16th August 1536. By his first wife, Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of John, Earl of Lennox, Sir John Colquhoun had four sons and four daughters; and by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of William Cunningham of Craigends, he had two sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Sir Humphry Colquhoun, married Lady Catherine Graham, daughter of William, first Earl of Montrose, and died in 1537. By her he had three sons and two daughters. His son James, designated of Garscube, ancestor of the Colquhouns of Garscube, Adam, and Patrick.[240] His eldest son, Sir John Colquhoun, married, first, Christian Erskine, daughter of Robert, Lord Erskine; and secondly, Agnes, daughter of the fourth Lord Boyd, ancestor of the Earls of Kilmarnock. He died in 1575.

His eldest son, Humphry, acquired the heritable coronership of the county of Dumbarton, from Robert Graham of Knockdollian, which was ratified and confirmed by a charter under the great seal in 1583.

In July 1592, some of the Macgregors and Macfarlanes came down upon the low country of Dumbartonshire, and committed vast ravages, especially upon the territory of the Colquhouns. At the head of his vassals, and accompanied by several of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, Sir Humphry Colquhoun attacked the invaders, and after a bloody conflict, which was only put an end to at nightfall, he was overpowered by his assailants, and forced to retreat. To quote from Mr Fraser’s _Chiefs of the Colquhouns_--“He betook himself to the castle of Bannachra, a stronghold which had been erected by the Colquhouns at the foot of the north side of the hill of Bennibuie, in the parish of Luss. A party of the Macfarlanes and Macgregors pursued him, and laid siege to his castle. One of the servants who attended the knight was of the same surname as himself. He had been tampered with by the assailants of his master, and treacherously made him their victim. The servant, while conducting his master to his room up a winding stair of the castle, made him by preconcert a mark for the arrows of the clan who pursued him by throwing the glare of a paper torch upon his person when opposite a loophole. A winged arrow, darted from its string with a steady aim, pierced the unhappy knight to the heart, and he fell dead on the spot. The fatal loophole is still pointed out, but the stair, like its unfortunate lord, has crumbled into dust.” Sir Humphry married, first, Lady Jean Cunningham, daughter of Alexander, fifth Earl of Glencairn, widow of the Earl of Argyll, by whom he had no children, and secondly, Jean, daughter of John, Lord Hamilton, by whom he had a daughter. Having no male issue, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Alexander.

In Sir Alexander’s time occurred the raid of Glenfinlas, and the bloody clan conflict of Glenfruin, between the Colquhouns and Macgregors, in December 1602 and February 1603, regarding which the popular accounts are much at variance with the historical facts. The Colquhouns had taken part in the execution of the letters of fire and sword issued by the crown against the Macgregors some years before, and the feud between them had been greatly aggravated by various acts of violence and aggression on both sides.

In 1602, the Macgregors made a regular raid on the laird of Luss’s lands in Glenfinlas, and carried off a number of sheep and cattle, as well as slew several of the tenants. Alexander Colquhoun, who had before complained to the privy council against the Earl of Argyll for not repressing the clan Gregor, but who had failed in obtaining any redress, now adopted a tragic method in order to excite the sympathy of the king. He appeared before his majesty at Stirling, accompanied by a number of females, the relatives of those who had been killed or wounded at Glenfinlas, each carrying the bloody shirt of her killed or wounded relative, to implore his majesty to avenge the wrongs done them. The ruse had the desired effect upon the king, who, from a sensitiveness of constitutional temperament, which made him shudder even at the sight of blood, was extremely susceptible to impressions from scenes of this description, and he immediately granted a commission of lieutenancy to the laird of Luss, investing him with power to repress similar crimes, and to apprehend the perpetrators.

“This commission granted to their enemy appears to have roused the lawless rage of the Macgregors, who rose in strong force to defy the laird of Luss; and Glenfruin, with its disasters and sanguinary defeat of the Colquhouns, and its ultimate terrible consequences to the victorious clan themselves, was the result.”

In the beginning of the year 1603, Allaster Macgregor of Glenstrae, followed by four hundred men chiefly of his own clan, but including also some of the clans Cameron and Anverich, armed with “halberschois, powaixes, twa-handit swordis, bowis and arrowis, and with hagbutis and pistoletis,” advanced into the territory of Luss. Colquhoun, acting under his royal commission, had raised a force which has been stated by some writers as having amounted to 300 horse and 500 foot. This is probably an exaggeration, but even if it is not, the disasters which befell them may be explained from the trap into which they fell, and from the nature of the ground on which they encountered the enemy. This divested them of all the advantages which they might have derived from superiority of numbers and from their horse.

On the 7th February 1603, the Macgregors were in Glenfruin “in two divisions,” writes Mr Fraser--“One of them at the head of the glen, and the other in ambuscade near the farm of Strone, at a hollow or ravine called the Crate. The Colquhouns came into Glenfruin from the Luss side, which is opposite Strone--probably by Glen Luss and Glen Mackurn. Alexander Colquhoun pushed on his forces in order to get through the glen before encountering the Macgregors; but, aware of his approach, Allaster Macgregor also pushed forward one division of his forces and entered at the head of the glen in time to prevent his enemy from emerging from the upper end of the glen, whilst his brother, John Macgregor, with the division of his clan, which lay in ambuscade, by a detour, took the rear of the Colquhouns, which prevented their retreat down the glen without fighting their way through that section of the Macgregors who had got in their rear. The success of the stratagem by which the Colquhouns were thus placed between two fires seems to be the only way of accounting for the terrible slaughter of the Colquhouns and the much less loss of the Macgregors.

“The Colquhouns soon became unable to maintain their ground, and, falling into a moss at the farm of Auchingaich, they were thrown into disorder, and made a hasty and disorderly retreat, which proved even more disastrous than the conflict, for they had to force their way through the men led by John Macgregor, whilst they were pressed behind by Allaster, who, reuniting the two divisions of his army, continued the pursuit.”

All who fell into the hands of the victors were at once put to death, and the chief of the Colquhouns barely escaped with his life after his horse had been killed under him. One hundred and forty of the Colquhouns were slaughtered, and many more were wounded, among whom were several women and children. When the pursuit ended, the work of spoliation and devastation commenced. Large numbers of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats were carried off, and many of the houses and steadings of the tenantry were burned to the ground. Their triumph the Macgregors were not allowed long to enjoy. The government took instant and severe measures against them. A price was put upon the heads of seventy or eighty of them by name, and upon a number of their confederates of other clans:--“Before any judicial inquiry was made,” says Mr Fraser, “on 3d April 1603, only two days before James VI. left Scotland for England to take possession of the English throne, an Act of Privy Council was passed, by which the name of Gregor or Macgregor was for ever abolished. All of this surname were commanded, under the penalty of death, to change it for another; and the same penalty was denounced against those who should give food or shelter to any of the clan. All who had been at the conflict of Glenfruin, and at the spoliation and burning of the lands of the Laird of Luss, were prohibited, under the penalty of death, from carrying any weapon except a pointless knife to eat their meat.” Thirty-five of the clan Gregor were executed after trial between the 20th May 1603 and the 2d March 1604. Amongst these was Allaster Macgregor, who surrendered himself to the Earl of Argyll.

By his wife Helen, daughter of Sir George Buchanan of that ilk, Alexander had one son and five daughters. He died in 1617.

The eldest son, Sir John, in his father’s lifetime, got a charter under the great seal of the ten pound land of Dunnerbuck, dated 20th February 1602, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia by patent dated the last day of August 1625. He married Lady Lillias Graham, daughter of the fourth Earl of Montrose, brother of the great Marquis, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. His two eldest sons succeeded to the baronetcy. From Alexander, the third son, the Colquhouns of Tillyquhoun were descended. He died in 1647.

Sir John, the second baronet of Luss, married Margaret, daughter and sole heiress of Sir Gideon Baillie of Lochend, in the county of Haddington, and had two sons, and seven daughters. He adhered firmly to the royal cause during all the time of the civil wars, on which account he suffered many hardships, and, in 1654, was by Cromwell fined two thousand pounds sterling. He was succeeded in 1676 by his younger son, Sir James--the elder having predeceased him--third baronet of Luss, who held the estates only four years, and being a minor, unmarried, left no issue. He was succeeded in 1680 by his uncle, Sir James, who married Penuel, daughter of William Cunningham of Balleichan, in Ireland. He had, with one daughter, two sons, Sir Humphry, fifth baronet, and James. The former was a member of the last Scottish Parliament, and strenuously opposed and voted against every article of the treaty of union. By his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Patrick Houston of that ilk, baronet, he had an only daughter, Anne Colquhoun, his sole heiress, who, in 1702, married James Grant of Pluscardine, second son of Ludovick Grant of Grant, immediate younger brother of Brigadier Alexander Grant, heir apparent of the said Ludovick.

Having no male issue, Sir Humphry, with the design that his daughter and her husband should succeed him in his whole estate and honours, in 1704 resigned his baronetcy into the hands of her majesty Queen Anne, for a new patent to himself in liferent, and his son-in-law and his heirs therein named in fee, but with this express limitation that he and his heirs so succeeding to that estate and title should be obliged to bear the name and arms of Colquhoun of Luss, &c. It was also specially provided that the estates of Grant and Luss should not be conjoined.

Sir Humphry died in 1718, and was succeeded in his estate and honours by James Grant, his son-in-law, under the name and designation of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. He enjoyed that estate and title till the death of his elder brother, Brigadier Alexander Grant, in 1719, when, succeeding to the estate of Grant, he relinquished the name and title of Colquhoun of Luss, and resumed his own, retaining the baronetcy, it being by the last patent vested in his person. He died in 1747.

By the said Anne, his wife, he had a numerous family. His eldest son, Humphry Colquhoun, subsequently Humphry Grant of Grant, died unmarried in 1732. The second son, Ludovick, became Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant, baronet, while the fourth son James succeeded as Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, the third son having died in infancy. He is the amiable and very polite gentleman described by Smollett in his novel of Humphry Clinker, under the name of “Sir George Colquhoun, a colonel in the Dutch service.” He married Lady Helen Sutherland, daughter of William Lord Strathnaver, son of the Earl of Sutherland, and by her he had three sons and five daughters. In 1777 he founded the town of Helensburgh on the frith of Clyde, and named it after his wife. To put an end to some disputes which had arisen with regard to the destination of the old patent of the Nova Scotia baronetcy, (John Colquhoun of Tillyquhoun, as the eldest cadet, having, on the death of his cousin-german, Sir Humphry Colquhoun, in 1718, assumed the title as heir male of his grandfather, the patentee), Sir James was, in 1786, created a baronet of Great Britain. His second youngest daughter, Margaret, married William Baillie, a lord of session, under the title of Lord Polkemmet, and was the mother of Sir William Baillie, baronet. Sir James died in November 1786.

His eldest son, Sir James Colquhoun, second baronet under the new patent, sheriff-depute of Dumbartonshire, was one of the principal clerks of session. By his wife, Mary, daughter and co-heir of James Falconer, Esq. of Monktown, he had seven sons and four daughters. He died in 1805. His eldest son, Sir James, third baronet, was for some time M.P. for Dumbartonshire. He married, on 13th June 1799, his cousin Janet, daughter of Sir John Sinclair, baronet, and had three sons and two daughters. Of this lady, who died October 21, 1846, and who was distinguished for her piety and benevolence, a memoir exists by the late Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., London.

“Some time after Sir James’ succession,” says Mr Fraser, to whose book on the Colquhouns we have been much indebted in this account, “significant testimony was given that the ancient feud between his family and that of the Macgregors, which had frequently led to such disastrous results to both, had given place to feelings of hearty goodwill and friendship. On an invitation from Sir James and Lady Colquhoun, Sir John Murray Macgregor and Lady Macgregor came on a visit to Rossdhu. The two baronets visited Glenfruin. They were accompanied by Lady Colquhoun and Misses Helen and Catherine Colquhoun. After the battlefield had been carefully inspected by the descendants of the combatants, Sir J. M. Macgregor insisted on shaking hands with Sir James Colquhoun and the whole party on the spot where it was supposed that the battle had been hottest. On the occasion of the same visit to Rossdhu, the party ascended Ben Lomond, which dominates so grandly over Loch Lomond. On the summit of this lofty mountain, Sir John M. Macgregor danced a Highland reel with Miss Catherine Colquhoun, afterwards Mrs Millar of Earnoch. Sir John was then fully eighty years of age.”

His eldest son, Sir James Colquhoun, the fourth baronet of the new creation, and the eighth of the old patent, succeeded on his father’s death, 3d Feb. 1836; chief of the Colquhouns of Luss; Lord-lieutenant of Dumbartonshire, and M.P. for that county from 1837 to 1841. He married in June 1843, Jane, daughter of Sir Robert Abercromby of Birkenbog. She died 3d May 1844, leaving one son, James, born in 1844.

The family mansion, Rossdhu, is situated on a beautiful peninsula. To the possessions of the family of Colquhoun was added in 1852 the estate of Ardincaple, purchased from the Duchess Dowager of Argyll. According to Mr Fraser, the three baronets of Luss, before Sir James, purchased up no less than fourteen lairdships.

Robert, a younger son of Sir Robert Colquhoun of that ilk, who married the heiress of Luss, was the first of the Colquhouns of Camstrodden, which estate, with the lands of Achirgahan, he obtained by charter, dated 4th July 1395, from his brother Sir Humphry. Sir James Colquhoun, third baronet, purchased in 1826 that estate from the hereditary proprietor, and re-annexed it to the estate of Luss.

The Killermont line, originally of Garscadden, is a scion of the Camstrodden branch.

FORBES.

Although there is great doubt as to the Celtic or at least Gaelic origin of the FORBES clan, still, as it was one of the most powerful and influential of the northern clans, it may claim a notice here. “The Forbes Family and following,” says Smibert, “ranked early among the strongest on the north-eastern coast of Scotland; and no one can reasonably doubt but that the ancient Pictish Gael of the region in question constituted a large proportion (if not of the Forbeses, at least) of the followers of the house.”

The traditions regarding the origin of the surname of Forbes are various; and some of them very fanciful. The principal of these, referred to by Sir Samuel Forbes in his “View of the diocese of Aberdeen” (MS. quoted by the Statistical Account of Scotland, art. Tullynessle and Forbes), states that this name was first assumed by one Ochonchar, from Ireland, who having slain a ferocious bear in that district, took the name of Forbear, now spelled and pronounced Forbes, in two syllables; although the English, in pronunciation, make it only one. In consequence of this feat the Forbeses carry in their arms three bears’ heads. A variation of this story says that the actor in this daring exploit was desirous of exhibiting his courage to the young and beautiful heiress of the adjacent castle, whose name being Bess, he, on receiving her hand as his reward, assumed it to commemorate his having killed the bear for “Bess.” Another tradition states that the name of the founder of the family was originally Bois, a follower of an early Scottish king, and that on granting him certain lands for some extraordinary service, his majesty observed that they were “for Boice.” The surname, however, is territorial, and said to be Celtic, from the Gaelic word Ferbash or Ferbasach, a bold man.

“On the whole,” says Smibert, “the traditions of the family, as well as other authorities, countenance with unusual strength, the belief, that the heads of the Forbeses belonged really to the Irish branch, and were among those strangers of that race whom the Lowland kings planted in the north and north-east of Scotland to overawe the remaining primary population of Gaelic Picts.”

According to Skene, in his treatise _De Verborum Significatione_, Duncan Forbois got from King Alexander (but which of the three kings of that name is not mentioned) a charter of the lands and heritage of Forbois in Aberdeenshire, whence the surname. In the reign of King William the Lion, John de Forbes possessed the lands of that name. His son, Fergus de Forbes, had a charter of the same from Alexander, Earl of Buchan, about 1236. Next of this race are Duncan de Forbes, his son, 1262, and Alexander de Forbes, grandson, governor of Urquhart Castle in Moray, which he bravely defended for a long time, in 1304, against Edward I. of England; but on its surrender all within the castle were put to the sword, except the wife of the governor, who escaped to Ireland, and was there delivered of a posthumous son. This son, Sir Alexander de Forbes, the only one of his family remaining, came to Scotland in the reign of Robert the Bruce, and his patrimonial inheritance of Forbes having been bestowed upon others, he obtained a grant of other lands instead. He was killed at the battle of Duplin, in 1332, fighting valiantly on the side of King David, the son of Bruce. From his son, Sir John de Forbes, 1373, all the numerous families in Scotland who bear the name and their offshoots, trace their descent.[241]

Sir John’s son, Sir Alexander de Forbes (curiously said to be posthumous like the above Alexander), acquired from Thomas, Earl of Mar, several lands in Aberdeenshire, the grant of which King Robert II. ratified by charter in the third year of his reign. By King Robert III. he was appointed justiciary of Aberdeen, and coroner of that county. He died in 1405. By his wife, a daughter of Kennedy of Dunure, he had four sons, namely--Sir Alexander, his successor, the first Lord Forbes; Sir William, ancestor of the Lords Pitsligo; Sir John, who obtained the thanedom of Formartine (which now gives the title of viscount to the Earl of Aberdeen) and the lands of Tolquhoun, by his marriage with Marjory, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Preston of Formartine, knight (of the Dingwall family), and was ancestor of the Forbeses of Tolquhoun, Foveran, Watertoun, Culloden, and others of the name; and Alexander, founder of the family of Brux, and others.

Alexander, the elder son, was created a peer of parliament sometime after 1436. The precise date of creation is not known, but in a precept, directed by James II. to the lords of the exchequer, dated 12th July 1442, he is styled Lord Forbes. He died in 1448. By his wife, Lady Elizabeth (sometimes called Lady Mary) Douglas, only daughter of George, Earl of Angus, and grand-daughter of King Robert II, he had two sons and three daughters.

James, the elder son, second Lord Forbes, was knighted by King James III. He died soon after 1460. By his wife, Lady Egidia Keith, second daughter of the first Earl Marischal, he had three sons and a daughter, namely--William, third Lord Forbes; Duncan, of Corsindae, ancestor (by his second son) of the Forbeses of Monymusk; and Patrick, the first of the family of Corse, progenitor of the Forbeses, baronets, of Craigievar, and of the Irish Earls of Granard. The daughter, Egidia, became the wife of Malcolm Forbes of Tolquhoun.

William, third Lord Forbes, married Lady Christian Gordon, third daughter of Alexander, first Earl of Huntly, and had, with a daughter, three sons, Alexander, fourth lord; Arthur, fifth lord; and John, sixth lord.

Alexander, fourth lord, died, while yet young, before 16th May 1491.

Arthur, fifth Lord Forbes, succeeded his brother, and being under age at the time, he was placed as one of the king’s wards, under the guardianship of John, Lord Glammis, whose daughter he had married, but he died soon after his accession to the title, without children.

His next brother, John, became sixth Lord Forbes, before 30th October 1496, at which date he is witness to a charter. The sixth lord died in 1547. He was thrice married, first, to Lady Catherine Stewart, second daughter of John, Earl of Athole, uterine brother of King James II., and by her he had a son John, who died young, and a daughter, Elizabeth, married to John Grant of Grant; secondly, to Christian, daughter of Sir John Lundin of that ilk, by whom he had two sons and four daughters; and, thirdly, to Elizabeth Barlow or Barclay, relict of the first Lord Elphinstone, killed at Flodden in 1513, by whom he had a son, Arthur Forbes of Putachie, and a daughter, Janet, who was also thrice married.

The elder son of the second marriage, John, the Master of Forbes above mentioned, is stated to have been a young man of great courage and good education, but of a bold and turbulent spirit. He was beheaded for treason, on the 17th of July 1537.

After the execution of the Master, the king (James V.) seems to have been anxious to compensate the family for his severity towards them, by admitting his next brother, William, into his favour. He restored to him his brother’s honours and estates, and in 1539, appointed him one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber. This William succeeded his father in 1547, as seventh Lord Forbes, and died in 1593. He had married Elizabeth Keith, daughter and coheiress, with her sister, Margaret, Countess Marischal, of Sir William Keith of Inverugie, and had by her six sons and eight daughters. The sons were, John, eighth Lord Forbes; William, of Foderhouse; James, of Lethendy: Robert, prior of Monymusk; Arthur of Logie, called from his complexion, “Black Arthur;” and Abraham, of Blacktoun.

John, eighth Lord Forbes, was one of the five noblemen appointed by commission from the king, dated 25th July 1594, lieutenants of the northern counties, for the suppression of the rebellion of the popish Earls of Huntly and Errol. His lordship was served heir to his mother 13th November 1604, and died soon afterwards. He had married, while still Master of Forbes, Lady Margaret Gordon, eldest daughter of George, fourth Earl of Huntly, and had, with a daughter named Jean, a son, John, who, being educated in the faith of his mother, entered a religious order on the continent, and died without succession. This lady Lord Forbes repudiated, and in consequence a sanguinary contest took place in 1572, in the parish of Clatt, Aberdeenshire, between the two rival clans of Forbes and Gordon. The latter, under the command of two of the earl’s brothers, attacked the Forbeses, within a rude intrenchment which they had formed on the white hill of Tillyangus, in the south-western extremity of the parish, and after a severe contest the Gordons prevailed, having carried the intrenchment, and slain the Master’s brother, “Black Arthur.” The pursuit of the Forbeses was continued to the very gates of Druminner, the seat of their chief. A number of cairns are still pointed out where those slain on this occasion are said to have been buried. The eighth Lord Forbes took for his second wife, Janet, daughter of James Seton of Touch, and had, besides Arthur, ninth lord, another son, and a daughter.

Arthur, ninth lord, married on 1st February 1600, Jean, second daughter of Alexander, fourth Lord Elphinstone. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, Alexander, tenth Lord Forbes, who fought against the imperialists under the banner of the lion of the north, the renowned Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in whose service he attained the rank of lieutenant-general, and won for himself a high military reputation. On his return home, he had a considerable command in the army sent from Scotland to suppress the Irish rebellion in 1643. He afterwards retired to Germany, where he spent the remainder of his days. He was twice married--first, to Anne, eldest daughter of Sir John Forbes of Pitsligo, by whom he had, besides several children, who died young, a son, William, eleventh Lord Forbes; and secondly, to Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Forbes of Rires, in Fife, and by her had a large family.

William, eleventh Lord Forbes, died in 1691. He was thrice married, but had issue only by his first wife, Jean, a daughter of Sir John Campbell of Calder.

His eldest son, William, twelfth Lord Forbes, was a zealous supporter of the revolution. In 1689 he was sworn a privy councillor to King William. He died in July 1716. By his wife, Anne, daughter of James Brodie of Brodie, he had three sons and one daughter.

William, the eldest son, thirteenth Lord Forbes, married, in September 1720, Dorothy, daughter of William Dale, Esq. of Covent Garden, Westminster. He died at Edinburgh 26th June 1730. He had a son, Francis, fourteenth lord, who died in August 1734, in the thirteenth year of his age, and four daughters, one of whom, Jean, was married to James Dundas of Dundas, and another, the youngest, Elizabeth, married John Gregory, M.D., professor of the practice of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, and was the mother of the celebrated Dr James Gregory.

James, second son of the twelfth lord, succeeded his nephew, as fifteenth Lord Forbes, and died at Putachie, 20th February 1761, in the 73d year of his age. He married, first, Mary, daughter of the third Lord Pitsligo, widow of John Forbes of Monymusk, and grandmother of the celebrated Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, baronet, and had a son, James, sixteenth Lord Forbes, and three daughters; secondly, in July 1741, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Gordon of Park, baronet.

James, sixteenth lord, died at Edinburgh 29th July 1804, in the 80th year of his age. By his wife Catherine, only daughter of Sir Robert Innes, baronet, of Orton and Balvenie, he had four sons and two daughters.

James Ochoncar Forbes, seventeenth lord, the eldest son, born 7th March 1765, entered the army in 1781, as ensign in the Coldstream regiment of foot guards, in which he was an officer for twenty-six years, holding important positions, and doing good service for his country. He died 4th May 1843. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Walter Hunter of Polmood, Peeblesshire, and Crailing, Roxburghshire, he had six sons and four daughters. The estate of Polmood had been the subject of litigation for nearly fifty years in the Court of Session and House of Lords, but it was ultimately decided that an old man named Adam Hunter, who laid claim to it, had not established his pedigree. It consequently came into the possession of Lady Forbes. His lordship’s eldest son, James, a lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream guards, predeceased his father in 1835.

Walter, the second son, born 29th May 1798, became eighteenth Lord Forbes, on his father’s death in 1843. He was twice married, and had in all eight sons and one daughter. He died in May 1868, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Horace Courtenay, born in 1829.

Lord Forbes is the premier baron of Scotland, being the first on the union roll. He is also a baronet of Nova Scotia, the date of creation being 1628.

The Forbeses of TOLQUHOUN, ancient cadets of this family, one of whom fell at the battle of Pinkie, 10th September 1547, are descended from Sir John Forbes, third son of Sir John Forbes, justiciary of Aberdeen in the reign of Robert III., are now represented by James Forbes Leith, Esq. of Whitehaugh, in the same county.

The Forbeses of CRAIGIEVAR (also in Aberdeenshire), who possess a baronetcy, descend from the Hon. Patrick Forbes of Corse, armour-bearer to King James III., and third son, as already stated, of James, second Lord Forbes. The lands of Corse, which formed part of the barony of Coul and O’Nele or O’Neil, were in 1476 bestowed on this Patrick, for his services, by that monarch, and on 10th October 1482 he had a charter of confirmation under the great seal, of the barony of O’Neil, namely, the lands of Coule, Kincraigy, and le Corss. In 1510 his son and successor, David, called “Trail the Axe,” had a charter of the lands of O’Nele, Cors, Kincraigy, le Mureton, with the mill and alehouse thereof (the lands of Coul being now disjoined therefrom), and uniting and incorporating them into a haill and free barony, “cum furca, fossa, pitt et gallous,” &c., to be called the barony of O’Neil in all time coming. He married Elizabeth, sister of Panter of Newmanswells, near Montrose, secretary of state to James IV., and had a son, Patrick of O’Neil Corse, infeft in 1554. Patrick’s eldest son, William, infeft in January 1567, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Alexander Strachan of Thornton, had six sons and five daughters.

His eldest son, Patrick Forbes of Corse and O’Neil, was bishop of Aberdeen for seventeen years, and died in 1635. The bishop’s male line failing with his grandchildren, the family estates devolved on the descendants of his next brother, William Forbes of Craigievar, the first of that branch.

His eldest son, William, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, 20th April 1630, with a grant of sixteen thousand acres in New Brunswick, erected into a free barony and regality, to be called New Craigievar.

Sir William’s son, Sir John, second baronet, married Margaret, a daughter of Young of Auldbar, and had six sons and three daughters.

His grandson, Sir Arthur, fourth baronet, represented the county of Aberdeen in parliament from 1727 to 1747. Sir Arthur was the bosom friend of Sir Andrew Mitchell, British ambassador to Frederick the Great of Prussia, who left to Sir Arthur the bulk of his property, including his valuable library, and his estate of Thainston.

His son, Sir William, fifth baronet, born in 1753, by his wife, the Hon. Sarah Sempill, daughter of the twelfth Lord Sempill, had four sons and seven daughters.

His son, Sir Arthur, sixth baronet, was for some time an officer in the 7th hussars. He died unmarried in 1823, and was succeeded by his brother, Sir John, seventh baronet, born in 1785. He was a judge in the Hon. East India company’s service, and married in September 1825, the Hon. Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of the 17th Lord Forbes, and had two sons and six daughters. He died 16th February 1846.

The elder son, Sir William, born May 20, 1836, succeeded as eighth baronet. In 1858 he married the only daughter of Sir Charles Forbes, Bart., of Newe and Edinglassie. He married, secondly, in November 1862, Frances Emily, youngest daughter of the late Sir George Abercromby, Bart. of Birkenbog, and has issue several sons.

The family of Forbes of PITSLIGO and FETTERCAIRN, which possesses a baronetcy, is descended from Hon. Duncan Forbes of Corsindae, second son of the second Lord Forbes.

The family of Forbes of NEWE and EDINGLASSIE, which also possesses a baronetcy, is descended from William Forbes of Dauch and Newe, younger son of Sir John Forbes, knight, who obtained a charter of the barony of Pitsligo and Kinnaldie, 10th October 1476, and whose elder son, Sir John Forbes, was the progenitor of Alexander Forbes, created Lord Forbes of Pitsligo, 24th June 1633, a title attainted in the person of Alexander, fourth lord, for his participation in the rebellion of 1745. John Forbes of Bellabeg, the direct descendant of the said William of Dauch, was born at Bellabeg in September 1743. In early life he went to Bombay, and engaging in mercantile pursuits, became one of the most extensive and distinguished merchants in India. Having realised a large fortune he repurchased Newe, the estate of his ancestors, besides other lands in Strathdon, and the whole of his rental was laid out in improvements. He died 20th June 1821, and was succeeded by his nephew, Sir Charles Forbes, eldest son of the Rev. George Forbes of Lochell, by his wife, Katharine, only daughter of Gordon Stewart of Inveraurie. He was created a baronet, 4th November 1823. He sat in parliament for upwards of twenty years. In 1833 he was served nearest male heir in general to Alexander, third Lord Pitsligo, by a jury at Aberdeen, and the same year he obtained the authority of the Lord Lyon to use the Pitsligo arms and supporters. He died 20th November 1849, and was succeeded by his grandson, Sir Charles, second baronet, born 15th July 1832, on whose death, unmarried, 23d May 1852, the title devolved on his uncle, Sir Charles Forbes, third baronet, born at Bombay 21st September 1803, and educated at Harrow school.

The first of the Forbeses of CULLODEN,[242] Inverness-shire, was Duncan Forbes, great-grandfather of the celebrated Lord President Forbes, descended from the noble family of Forbes through that of Tolquhoun, and by the mother’s side from that of Keith, Earl Marischal. He was M.P. and provost of Inverness, and purchased the estate of Culloden from the laird of Mackintosh in 1626. He died in 1654, aged 82.

Duncan Forbes, the first of Culloden, married Janet, eldest daughter of James Forbes of Corsindae, also descended from the noble family at the head of the clan, and had, with two daughters, three sons, namely, John, his heir, Captain James Forbes of Caithness, and Captain Duncan Forbes of Assynt.

John Forbes of Culloden, the eldest son, was also provost of Inverness. He was the friend and supporter of the Marquis of Argyll, and from his strong support of Presbyterian principles he suffered much in the reign of Charles II. and his brother James. About the year 1670, his landed estate was doubled by the purchase of the barony of Ferintosh and the estate of Bunchrew. As a compensation for the loss which the family had sustained during the revolution, his eldest son and successor, Duncan Forbes, third of Culloden, received from the Scots parliament the privilege of distilling into spirits the grain of the barony of Ferintosh, at a nominal composition of the duty, which remained the same, after the spirits distilled in other parts of the country were subjected to a comparatively heavy excise; hence Ferintosh became renowned for its whisky. The privilege was taken away in 1785. By his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Innes, of Innes, in Morayshire, baronet, he had two sons, John, and Duncan, Lord President, and several daughters.

John, the fourth laird of Culloden, took an active part on the side of government on the breaking out of the rebellion of 1715, and, with the afterwards celebrated Lord Lovat, narrowly escaped being apprehended at Aberdeen by Lord Saltoun, in command of the Jacobite forces there. Both he and his brother Duncan were engaged in putting down the insurrection in Inverness-shire. In those convivial times he so much excelled most of his friends in the quantity of claret that he could drink, that he was distinguished by the name of Bumper John. Dying without issue in 1734, he was succeeded by his only brother, Duncan,[243] the celebrated Lord President, whose only child, John Forbes, the sixth of Culloden, showed, when young, says Mr Burton, “the convivial spirit of his race, without their energy and perseverance.” He lived retired at Stradishall, in Suffolk, and by economy and judicious management succeeded in some measure in retrieving the losses which his father had sustained in the public service, and which, with the utmost ingratitude, the government, which his exertions and outlay had mainly helped to establish, refused to acknowledge or compensate. John Forbes died 26th September 1772. He was twice married--first to Jane, daughter of Sir Arthur Forbes of Craigievar, baronet, by whom he had two sons, Duncan, who died before him, and Arthur, his successor; and, secondly, Jane, daughter of Captain Forbes of Newe, without issue.

Arthur, seventh laird, died 26th May 1803, and was succeeded by his only son, Duncan George, who died 3d November 1827, when his eldest son, Arthur, born 25th January 1819, became the ninth laird of Culloden.

There are many other families of this name, but want of space forbids us entering into further details.

URQUHART.

URQUHART, or URCHARD, is the name of a minor clan (_Urachdun_), originally settled in Cromarty (badge, the wallflower), a branch of the clan Forbes. Nisbet says,--“A brother of Ochonchar, who slew the bear, and was predecessor of the Lords Forbes, having in keeping the castle of Urquhart, took his surname from the place.” This castle stood on the south side of Loch Ness, and was in ancient times a place of great strength and importance, as is apparent from its extensive and magnificent ruins. In that fabulous work, “The true pedigree and lineal descent of the most ancient and honourable family of Urquhart, since the creation of the world, by Sir Thomas Urquhart, Knight of Cromartie,” the origin of the family and name is ascribed to _Ourqhartus_, that is, “fortunate and well-beloved,” the familiar name of Esormon, of whom the eccentric author describes himself as the 128th descendant. He traces his pedigree, in a direct line, even up to Adam and Eve, and somewhat inconsistently makes the word _Urquhart_ have the same meaning as _Adam_, namely, _red earth_.

The family of Urquhart is one of great antiquity. In Hailes’ _Annals_, it is mentioned that Edward I. of England, during the time of the competition for the Scottish crown, ordered a list of the sheriffs in Scotland to be made out. Among them appears the name of William Urquhart of Cromartie, heritable sheriff of the county. He married a daughter of Hugh, Earl of Ross, and his son Adam obtained charters of various lands. A descendant of his, Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, who lived in the 16th century, is said to have been father of 11 daughters and 25 sons. Seven of the latter fell at the battle of Pinkie in 1547, and from another descended the Urquharts of Newhall, Monteagle, Kinbeachie, and Braelangwell.

The eldest son, Alexander Urquhart of Cromartie, had a charter from James V. of the lands of Inch Rory and others, in the shires of Ross and Inverness, dated March 7, 1532. He had two sons. The younger son, John Urquhart, born in 1547, became tutor to his grand-nephew, Sir Thomas Urquhart, and was well known afterwards by the designation of the “Tutor of Cromartie.” He died November 8, 1631, aged 84.

Sir Thomas, the family genealogist, is chiefly known as the translator of _Rabelais_. He appears to have at one period travelled much on the continent. He afterwards became a cavalier officer, and was knighted by Charles I. at Whitehall. After that monarch’s decapitation, he accompanied Charles II. in his march into England, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester in 1651, when his estates were forfeited by Cromwell. He wrote several elaborate works, but the most creditable is his translation of _Rabelais_. Such, notwithstanding, was the universality of his attainments, that he deemed himself capable of enlightening the world on many things never “dreamed of in the philosophy” of ordinary mortals. “Had I not,” he says, “been pluck’d away by the importunity of my creditors, I would have emitted to public view above five hundred several treatises on inventions, never hitherto thought upon by any.” The time and place of his death are unknown. There is a tradition that he died of an inordinate fit of laughter, on hearing of the restoration of Charles II. The male line ended in Colonel James Urquhart, an officer of much distinction, who died in 1741. The representation of the family devolved on the Urquharts of Braelangwell, which was sold (with the exception of a small portion, which is strictly entailed) by Charles Gordon Urquhart, Esq., an officer in the Scots Greys. The Urquharts of Meldrum, Aberdeenshire, obtained that estate through the marriage, in 1610, of their ancestor, John Urquhart of Craigfintry, tutor of Cromarty, with Elizabeth Seton, heiress of Meldrum. The Urquharts of Craigston, and a few more families of the name, still possess estates in the north of Scotland; and persons of this surname are still numerous in the counties of Ross and Cromarty. In Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, and Morayshire, there are parishes of the name of Urquhart.

FOOTNOTES:

[228] _Highlands of Scotland_, p. 288.

[229] For portrait of General Hugh Mackay, _vide_ vol. i. p. 361.

[230] _Skene’s Highlanders_, vol ii. p. 301.

[231] See p. 61, vol. i.

[232] See p. 60, vol. i.

[233] For view of old Dunrobin Castle, _vide_ vol. i. p. 83.

[234] Details of these feuds will be found in vol. i.

[235] For the circumstances attending this unnatural murder, which the Earl of Caithness is said to have instigated, see vol. i. p. 90.

[236] In reference to this, we extract the following from the _Scotsman_, Feb. 12, 1869:--“Within the last few days a handsome monument from the granite works of Messrs Macdonald, Field, & Co., Aberdeen, has been erected in the churchyard of Balquhidder, bearing the following inscription:--‘In memoriam of the Clan Laurin, anciently the allodian inhabitants of Balquhidder and Strathearn, the chief of whom, in the decrepitude of old age, together with his aged and infirm adherents, their wives and children, the widows of their departed kindred--all were destroyed in the silent midnight hour by fire and sword, by the hands of a banditti of incendiarists from Glendochart, A.D. 1558. Erected by Daniel Maclaurin, Esq. of St John’s Wood, London, author of a short history of his own clan, and for the use of his clansmen only.--October 1868.’”

[237] For the information here given, we are mainly indebted to the MS. above referred to.

[238] _History of Scotland._

[239] Fraser’s _Chiefs of Colquhoun_.

[240] Fraser’s _Chiefs of Colquhoun_.

[241] Low’s _Scot. Heroes, App._

[242] See view of Culloden House, vol. i. p. 657.

[243] See portrait, vol. i. p. 679. Details concerning this true patriot and upright judge will be found in the account of the rebellion of 1745.