Donald Mackay of Farr, a firm ally of, and related to, the Gordons, Earls of Sutherland, was through them brought under the notice of, and knighted by, James VI. in 1616. Afterwards, having raised, by licence of the King, a regiment of 3000 men, who left Cromarty in 1624, to assist Count Mansfield in his campaign in Germany, he was created a baronet.
Next year he was raised to the peerage, under the title of Lord Reay, when, with a number of other gentlemen from Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, he served under Gustavus Adolphus in his campaigns for Protestantism. Lord Reay afterwards showed his attachment to royalty by taking up arms in defence of Charles I., for whose cause he brought from Denmark arms, ships, and a large sum of money.
Taken prisoner at Newcastle, he was confined in Edinburgh until after the battle of Kilsyth, when he was released, and shortly after he embarked from Thurso for Denmark, where he died.
He was succeeded by his second son John, who was married to a daughter of Scourie, said to have been a woman of great beauty, and of singularly fascinating manners. Brought up in the principles and opinions of his Royalist father, it was little to be wondered at that Lord Reay joined Glencairn in his rising for the King in 1654. When the Earl of Middleton took the command at Dornoch of the Royalist troops, by virtue of a commission from Charles II., thus superseding Glencairn, Lord Reay continued to serve under the new General till he was taken prisoner at Balveny, and conveyed to Edinburgh Tolbooth, where he remained during a lengthened period of the troubles of the Commonwealth, but at length effected his escape in the following manner:—
One autumn afternoon might be seen emerging from the gloomy doors of the Heart of Mid-Lothian—as the Tolbooth of Edinburgh was designated—two very remarkable forms. A lady, young and of wondrous beauty, her hair of that shade of which the poets of our land have so loved to sing—“a gowden yellow”—as seen by a few stray ringlets from beneath the plaid drawn over her head; her eyes, brilliantly blue, flashed in their glances of anxiety; her figure, straight and lithe as the lily stalk, and as she walked seemed to exhibit the very poetry of motion. Her attendant, a man of gigantic size, and stout in proportion, of fierce aspect, save when his glance fell upon his mistress, bore the Lochaber-axe, dirk, and sgian dubh—his arms, which he had just received back from the sentries or guards as he stepped into the street, and which he had left outside in order that he might be admitted to the prison. The contrast between the two was most marked, as was also the conversation. The lady was the wife of the Lord John Reay, the prisoner in the jail from which they had just stepped forth. The man was their trusty henchman, John Mackay, the favourite of his noble master and mistress, as much for his courage as for his fidelity and gentleness, and their pride in him as a clansman of enormous size and strength.
If Lady Reay was anxious, John was equally so—his eyes seemed to follow every glance of hers, like an attached hound seeking to anticipate the owner’s wish.
Looking round to John, who followed a few steps behind, while she seemed to hesitate in her progress, she said, as if half communing with herself, ‘I will go, and God be with me.’ ‘Surely, my lady, but where to?’ ‘I will see Cromwell—will entreat him, he may listen to me.’ ‘Surely, my lady, and what for no?’
And away went Lady Reay to endeavour to obtain an interview with Oliver Cromwell, then in Edinburgh at the head of the Parliamentary troops.
Access to Cromwell was a difficult matter, but Lady Reay was fortunate in obtaining an introduction through an intimate friend. As she was presented, Cromwell, in his usual abrupt manner, was in the act of turning away, when her ladyship fell on her knees at his feet, and, catching the skirts of his coat, poured forth in heart-breaking, agonised supplications her entreaties for her husband’s release. Struck by her deportment, her beauty, and her language, he listened, and finally, overcome by her supplication, said he would willingly do all in his power to serve her, and restore her husband to her; but as Lord Reay was a State prisoner, the Committee of Estates could alone discharge him from custody.
On hearing his decision, she became so affected that Cromwell at last declared to her that if she could by any means get her husband out of ward, he would grant him a protection to prevent his further molestation. This protection he wrote and handed to her ladyship, who retired with heightened hopes, springing she knew not what from.