David Bruce's prolonged occupancy and
Robert II who was elderly when he succeeded. Old Bleary Robert had five sons John,
Robert, David, Alexander, and Walter. John prevailed instead of the old Pictish
choice. King Edward of England died soon after Robert II's accession and was succeeded
by the ten year old Richard II. in 1388, the second of Earl of Douglas married
to one of the King's daughters, decided that his family feud with the Percy Earl
of Northumberland demanded more than cross-border raiding.
The
MacKenzie chief was too young for this fate, but he quickly learned to whom
he should pay allegiance, a lesson which succeeding Stewart monarchs were to hammer
home to the other Highland chiefs, and he obtained royal charters to his lands
of Kintail in 1463.
The MacKenzies weathered the storms which the Stewarts unleashed on the MacDonalds,
so that their fortunes waxed as the MacDonald's waned. Alasdair of Kintail raised
his clan against the last Earl of
Ross and was rewarded by James III,
who granted him extensive lands taken from the defeated earl. The splendid tomb
of his son, Kenneth, in the full armour and panoply of a knight, can still be
seen in Beauly Priory.
The earldom of Ross became separated from the chiefship
of the clan, and it ultimately, after the forfeiture of John, Lord
of the Isles and Earl of Ross, at the end of the fifteenth century, was conferred
upon the second son of James III. and a succession of other holders. Meanwhile,
however, the chiefship had really passed to a brother of the last Earl William,
father of the Countess Euphemia. The 17th century the charter of the lands of
Balnagowan in 1374 for which Hugh Ross of Rarichies, the brother of the last Earl
of Ross, by clan law, the chiefship devolved. The last of his race Donald Ross
of Balnagowan sold the estate to Hon. General Ross, the brother of the twelfth
Lord Ross of Hawkhead. After centuries of Norwegian rule, Orkney
was annexed as part of Scotland by James III in 1468. When Alasdair
of Ross died, however, his son John entered into the secret Treaty of Ardtornish
with England’s Henry VIII in 1462. James III bestowed it on his second son, James
Stewart, whom he also created Duke
of Ross in 1488.
The castle was captured by the Earl of Huntly in 1504,
and the castle was handed to the MacRaes in 1509. In 1507, Kintail was a free
barony. The MacRaes, who formed the bodyguard of the Chief
of Kintail and were known as "MacKenzies Coat of Mail" first became Constables
of the Castle in 1509. They took control of the area and the Clan was involved
in many raids and sieges. One such epic occasion occurred in 1539 when Donald
Gorm, a Lord of the Isles, lead 400 warriors in an attack on the Castle. The Acting
Constable, Duncan MacRae, withstood the assault; he successfully defended the
castle and, with his last arrow, fatally wounded Donald
Gorm, Lord of Sleat. The ghost of one of the soldiers of the Spanish garrison
haunts the castle, and Lady Mary haunts one of the bedrooms. Nearly every haunted
castle claims to be haunted by Mary, Queen of Scots.
The newly found passionate
fervour of the Church of Scotland during the 17th century rejected all who could
not pass “The Test” of taking an oath of belief in the Church. Those failing the
“Test” were sometimes burnt at the stake or, more kindly, banished to Australia,
the Carolinas or the Islands. Many Clansmen were freely encouraged to migrate
to Ireland. Families migrated from Scotland to Ireland with promises of cheap
Irish soil. They became known as the “Scotch/Irish”.
Forty heads of families settled with their families mostly in Antrim
and Down. The New World beckoned the adventurous. Some sailed voluntarily
from Ireland, but most sailed directly from Scotland, their home territories,
across the stormy Atlantic aboard small sailing ships known as “White sails”,
ships such as the Hector, the Rambler and the Dove. These overcrowded ships, sometimes
spending two months at sea, were racked with disease, sometimes landing with only
60 % of their original passenger lists.
By the beginning of the seventeenth
century the MacKenzie territory extended from the Black Isle to the
Outer Hebrides. They gained the island of Lewis from it's former MacLeod rulers
and Lochalsh from the MacDonells. Their western stonghold was at Eilean Donan
Castle where they installed the MacRaes as heriditary constables. The MacRaes
were fierce in defence of their MacKenzie overlords, becoming known as MacKenzie's
shirt of mail. In 1609 the chief was raised to the peerage as Lord MacKenzie of
Kintail. Fourteen years later, his son was created Earl of Seaforth. Lord MacKenzies
brother, Sir Roderick MacKenzie of Coigach, was to found the line created baronets
in May 1628 and, in 1702, Earls of Cromartie.
They made their chief seate at Castle Leod. a name chosen to demonstrate their
connection with the MacLeods of Lewis.
Inverness 1649, During the Civil
War the Clan Munro and Clan
Fraser again took Inverness Castle. This time they were also joined by Clan
Urquhart and Clan MacKenzie who
they had recently made peace with. They were all opposed to the authority of the
current parliament. They assaulted the town and took the castle. They then expelled
the garrison and raised the fortifications. However on the approach of the parliamentry
forces led by General Leslie all of the clans retreated back into Ross-shire.
clan's name derives from the area of Airchartdan or Urchard in Scotland, where
Urquhart Castle sits beside Loch Ness. Several branches of the Clan Urquhart have
emigrated to North America.
Castle Donan was destroyed whilst acting as
a garrison for Spanish troops fighting for the Jacobite cause on behalf of the
5th Earl of Seaforth. In 1719,
at the time of an unsuccessful Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender,
the Spanish, who were assisting the Jacobites, sent an expeditionary force to
Scotland and set up their headquarters at Eilean Donan. On 10th May, 1719, three
English frigates, Worcester, Enterprise and Flamborough,
under the command of Captain Boyle, sailed into Loch Alsh and attacked Eilean
Donan. The Castle, defended by only forty-eight Spaniards commanded by a Captian
and Lieutenant, fell after a short bombardment to superior atillery fire, and
the Spanish soldiers surrendered. Taken aboard the frigates, the Spanish soldiers
were shipped back to Leith and imprisoned there. The rising ended one month later
on 10th June with the defeat of the Jacobites (poorly provisioned and armed) at
the Battle of Glen Shiel.
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