"Since, contrary to the rules of right reason, you was pleased to tell me a sham story about the expedition to Blair, without further ceremony for me, you may now do what the gentlemen of the country think fit with the castle: I am in no concern about it. Our great-great-grandfather, grandfather, and father's pictures will be an irreparable loss on blowing up the house; but there is no comparison to be made with these faint images of our forefathers and the more necessary publick service, which requires we should sacrifice everything that can valuably contribute towards the country's safety, as well as materially advancing the royal cause. Pray give my kind service to all valuable friends, to which I can add nothing but that, in all events, you may be assured I shall ever be found with just regard, dear brother, your most affectionate brother and humble servant."
"PS. At the upper end of the door of the old stable, there was formerly a gate which had a portcullis into the castle; it is half built up and boarded over on the stable side, large enough to hold a horse at hack and manger. People that don't know the place imagine it may be much easier dug through than any other part of the wall, so as to make a convenient passage into the vaulted room, which is called the servants' hall."
Of the fate of this princely territory, and upon the fortunes of the family of which the Marquis of Tullibardine was so respectable a member, much remains to be related; but it appertains more properly to the life of the warlike and ambitious brother of the Marquis, the celebrated Lord George Murray.
SIR JOHN MACLEAN.
The name Maclean, abbreviated from Mac Gillean, is derived from the founder of the clan, "Gillean n'a Tuaidh," Gillean of the Battle-axe, so called from his carrying with him as his ordinary weapon, a battle-axe. From this hero are descended the three principal families who compose the clan Maclean, who was also designated Gillean of Duart.
It is related of Gillean that, being one day engaged in a stag-hunt on the mountain of Bein't Sheala, and having wandered away from the rest of his party, the mountain became suddenly enveloped in a deep mist, and that he lost his track. For three days he wandered about; and, at length exhausted, threw himself under the shelter of a cranberry bush, previously fixing the handle of his battle-axe in the earth. He was discovered by his party, who had been vainly endeavouring to find him, insensible on the ground, with his arm round the handle of the battle-axe, whilst the head of the weapon rose above the bush. Hence, probably, the origin of the crest used by the clan Maclean, the battle-axe surrounded by a laurel-branch.[69]
To Gillean of the Battle-axe various origins have been ascribed; truly is it observed, that "there is little wisdom in attempting to thread the mazes of fanciful and traditionary genealogies."[70] Like other families of importance, in feudal times, the Macleans had their seneachie, or historian; and, by the last of these, Dr. John Beaton, the descent, in regular order, from Aonaglius Turmi Teanebrach, a powerful monarch of Ireland, to Fergus the First, of Scotland, is traced.
A tradition had indeed prevailed, that the founder, of the house of Maclean was a son of Fitzgerald, an Earl of Kildare,—a supposition which is contemptuously rejected by the historian of this ancient race. "In fact," he remarks, "from various sources, Gillean can be proved to have been in his grave, long before such a title as Earl of Kildare was known, and nearly two hundred years before the name of Fitzgerald existed."[71] It appears, indeed, undoubted, from ancient records and well-authenticated sources, that the origin of Gillean was derived from the source which has been stated.