It has been maintained by the family of Gairloch that there is no truth in the charge against their ancestor, Hector Roy, which we have just given mainly on the authority of the Earl of Cromartie. The writer of the Ardintoul MS. of the Mackenzies, [Dr George Mackenzie gives substantially the same account,] however corroborates his lordship, and says that John was but young when his father died; and Hector, his younger uncle (Duncan, Hector's eldest brother, who should be tutor being dead, and Allan, Duncan's son, not being able to oppose or grapple with Hector), meddled with the estate. It is reported that Hector wished Allan out of the way, whom he thought only to stand in his way from being laird, since he was resolved not to own my Lord Lovat's daughter's children, being all bastards and gotten in adultery. The reason why they entertained such thoughts of him was partly this: Hector going to Ellandonnan (where he placed Malcolm Mac Eancharrich constable) called such of the country people to him as he judged fit, under pretence of setting and settling the country, but asked not for, nor yet called his nephew Allan, who lived at Invershiel, within a few miles of Ellandonnan, but went away. Allan, suspecting this to have proceeded from unkindness, sends to one of his familiar friends to know the result of the meeting, or if there was any spoken concerning him. The man, perhaps, not being willing to be an ill instrument twixt so near relations, sends Allan the following Irish (Gaelic) lines:

Inversheala na struth bras,
Tar as, 's fear foul ga d' fheitheamh,
Nineag, ga caol a cas,
Tha leannan aice gun thios,
A tighinn ga'm fhaire a shios,
Tha i, gun fhios, fo mo chrios
Tha 'n sar lann ghuilbneach ghlas, -
Bhehion urchair dha le fios.

Allan put his own construction on them, and thought a friend warned him to have a care of himself, there being some designs on him from a near relation; and so that very night, in the beginning thereof, he removed himself and family and anything he valued within the house to an bill above the town, where he might see and bear anything that might befall the house; and that same night about cock crow he saw bis house and biggings in flames, and found them consumed to ashes on the morrow. The perpetrators could not be found; yet it was generally thought to be Hector his uncle's contrivance."

The writer then describes the legitimation of Agnes Fraser's children by the Pope, and continues - "Hector, notwithstanding of the legitimation, refused to quit the possession of the estate," and he then gives the same account of John's feigned expedition to Ireland, and the burning of Hector's house at Wester Fairburn, substantially as already given from another source, but adding - "That very night they both entered upon terms of agreement without acquainting or sending for any, or to advise a reconciliation betwixt them. The sum of their agreement was, that Hector, as a man able to rule and govern, should have (allowing John an aliment) the estate for five or six years, till John should be major, and that thereafter Hector should render it to John as the right and lawful undoubted heir, and that Hector should ever afterwards acknowledge and honour him as his chief, and so they parted, all being well pleased. [John and Hector did condescend that Hector should have the estate till John were one and twentie years, and that John should live on his own purchase till then. Letter from MS.] But Allan and the most of the Kintail men were dissatisfied that John did not get Ellandonnan, his principal house, in his own possession, and so desired John to come to them and possess the castle by fair or foul means wherein they promised to assist him. John goes to Kintail, desires him to render the place to him, which he refused, for which cause John ordered bring all his cattle to those he employed to besiege the castle till Malcolm (the governor) would be starved out of it. Yet this did not prevail with the governor, till he got Hector's consent, who, being acquainted, came to Lochalsh and met with his nephew, and after concerting the matter, Hector sends word to Malcolm to render the place to John. But Malcolm would not till he would be paid of his goods that were destroyed. But Hector sending to him the second time, after considerable negotiation for several days, telling him he was a fool, that he might remember how himself was used, and that that might be a means to take his life also. Whereupon Malcolm renders the house, but John was so much offended at him that he would not continue him governor, but gave the charge to Gillechriost Mac Fhionnla Mhic Rath, making him Constable of the Isle. So after that there was little or no debate twixt John and Hector during the rest of the six years he was Tutor.' [Ardintoul and Ancient MSS. of the Mackenzies.]

The MS. Histories of the family are borne out by Gregory, [Highlands and Isles of Scotland, p. 111] who informs us that "Hector Roy Mackenzie, progenitor of the House of Gairloch, had, since the death of Kenneth Og Mackenzie of Kintail, in 1497, and during the minority of John, the brother and heir of Kenneth, exercised the command of that clan, nominally as guardian to the young chief. Under his rule the Clan Mackenzie became involved in feuds with the Munroes and other clans, and Hector Roy himself became obnoxious to Government as a disturber of the public peace. His intentions towards the young Laird of Kintail were considered very dubious; and the apprehensions of the latter having been roused, Hector was compelled by law to yield up the estate and the command of the tribe to the proper heir." Gregory gives the "Acts of the Lords of Council, xxii., fo. 142," as that upon which, among other autho-rities, he founds. We give the following extract, except that the spelling is modernised:

"7th April 1511. - Anent the summons made at the instance of John Mackenzie of Kintail against Hector Roy Mackenzie for the wrongous intromitting, uptaking, and withholding from him of the mails 'fermez,' profits, and duties of all and whole the lands of Kintail, with the pertinents lying in the Sheriffdom of Inverness, for the space of seven years together, beginning in the year of God 1501, and also for the space of two years, last bye-past, and for the masterful withholding from the said John Mackenzie of his house and Castle of Ellandonnan, and to bring with him his evidence if (he) any has of the constabulary and keeping thereof, and to hear the same decerned of none avail, and diverse other points like as at more length; is contained in the said summons, the said John Mackenzie being personally present, and the said Hector Roy being lawfully summoned to this action, oft-times called and not compearing, the said John's rights, etc. The Lords of Council decree and deliver, that the said Hector has forfeited the keeping and constabulary of the said Castle of Ellandonnan, together with the fees granted therefor, and decern all evidents, if he any has made to him thereupon, of none avail, force, nor effect, and the said John Mackenzie to have free ingress and entry to the said Castle, because he required the said Hector for deliverance thereof and to thole him to enter thereunto, howbeit the said Hector refused and would not give him entry to the said Castle, but if his servants would have delivered their happinnis from them to his men or their entries, like as one actentit instrument taken thereupon shown and produced before the said Lords purported and bore, and therefore ordains our sovereign Lords' letters (to) be directed to devode and rid the said Castle and to keep the said John in possession thereof as effeirs and continues to remanent points contained in the said summons in form, as they are now, unto the 20th day of July next to come, with continuation of days, and ordains that letters be written in form of commission to the Sheriff of Inverness and his deputies to summon witnesses and take probations thereupon and to summon the party to heir them sworn and thereafter send their depositions closed to the Lords again, the said day, under the said Sheriffs or his Deputy's seal, that thereafter justice may be ministered thereuntill."

Whatever truth there may be in the accounts given by the family historians, Hector Roy was undoubtedly at this period possessed of considerable estates of his own; for, we find a "protocol," by John Vass, "Burges of Dygvayll, and Shireff in this pairt," by which he makes known that, by the command of his sovereign lord, letters and process was directed to him as Sheriff granting him to give Hector Mackenzie heritable state and possession "of all and syndri the landis off Gerloch with thar pertinens, after the forme and tenor off our souerane lordis chartyr maide to the forsaide Hector," lying between the waters called Inverew and Torridon. The letter is dated "At Alydyll (?Talladale) the xth of the moneth off December the zher off Gode ane thousande four hundreth nynte an four zheris."

It is clear that Hector did not long continue under a cloud; for in 1508 the King directed a mandate to the Chamberlain of Ross requesting him to enter Hector Roy Mackenzie in the "males and proffitis of our landis of Braane and Moy, with ariage, cariage and vther pertinence thareof … for his gude and thankfull service done and to be done to us … and this on na wise ye leif vndone, as ye will incur our indignatioun and displesour. This our letrez … efter the forme of our said vther letres past obefor, given vnder our signet at Edinburgh the fift day of Marche and of Regne the twenty yere. - (Signed) James R." In 1513 he received a charter under the great seal of the lands of Gairloch formerly granted him, with Glasletter and Coruguellen, with their pertinents. [The original charter; the "protocol" from John Vass; the mandate to the Chamberlain of Ross, for copies of which we are indebted to Sir Kenneth S. Mackenzie, Baronet, are in the Gaitloch Charter Chest, and the latter two will be found in extenso in the account of the Gairloch family later on.] Hector Roy's conduct towards John has been unfavourably criticised, but if it is kept in mind that no regular marriage ever took place between Kenneth a Bhlair and John's mother, Agnes of Lovat that their union was not recognised by the Church until 1491, if then, the same year in which Kenneth died it can easily be understood why Hector should conscientiously do what he probably held to be his duty-oppose John of Killin in the interest of those whom he considered the legitimate successors of Kenneth a Bhlair and his unfortunate son, Kenneth Og, to whom only, so far as we can discover, Hector Roy was appointed Tutor; for when his brother, Kenneth a Bhlair, died, there was every appearance that Hector's ward, Kenneth Og, would succeed when he came of age. The succession of John of Killin was at most only a remote possibility when his father died, and therefore no Tutor to him would have been appointed.

In terms of an Act passed in 1496, anent the education of young gentlemen of note, John, when young, was sent by Hector Roy to Edinburgh to complete his education at Court. He thus, in early life, acquired a knowledge of legal principles and practice of great service and value to him in after life, not only in the management of his own affairs, but in aiding his friends and countrymen in their peculiar difficulties by his counsel and guidance, and thus he secured such universal esteem and confidence as seldom fell to the lot of a Highland chief in that rude and unruly age. The standard of education necessary at Court in those days must have been very different from that required in ours, for we find that, with all his opportunities, John of Killin could not write his own name. To a bond in favour of the Earl of Huntly he subscribes, "Jhone M'Kenzie of Kyntaill, with my hand on the pen led by Master William Gordone, Notar."

Referring to the power of the House of Kintail at this period, and to the rapid advance made by the family under Alexander and his successors, we quote the following from a modern MS. history of the family by the late Captain John Matheson of Bennetsfield: "We must observe here the rapid advance which the family of Kintail made on every side. The turbulent Macdonalds, crushed by the affair of Park, Munro, sustained by his own clan, and the neighbouring vassals of Ross humbled at their own door, when a century had not yet passed since the name of Mackenzie had become familiar to their ears; and it is gratifying to trace all this to the wise policy of the first James and his successors. The judicious education of Alastair Ionraic, and consequent cultivation of those habits which, by identifying the people with the monarch through the laws, render a nation securely great, is equally discernible in John of Killin and his posterity. The successors of the Earls of Ross were turbulent and tenacious of their rights, but they were irreclaimable. The youthful Lord of the Isles, at the instigation of his haughty mother, deserted the Court of James I., while young Kintail remained, sedulously improving himself at school in Perth, till he was called to display his gratitude to his Royal master in counteracting the evil arising from the opposite conduct of Macdonald. Thus, by one happy circumstance, the attention of the King was called to a chieftain who gave such early promise of steady attachment, and his future favour was secured. The family of Kintail was repeatedly recognised in the calendar of the Scottish Court, while that of the once proud Macdonalds frowned in disappointment and barbarous independence amidst their native wilds, while their territories, extending beyond the bounds of good government and protection, presented gradually such defenceless gaps as became inviting and easily penetrable by the intelligence of Mackenzie, and Alastair Ionraic acquired a great portion of his estates by this legitimate advantage, afterwards secured by the intractable arrogance of Macdonald of Lochalsh and the valour and military capacity of Coinneach a Bhlair."