[262] A battle at Sgeir na Caillich on Lochalsh, between the Straits of Kylerhea and Kyleakin. According to the Clan Donald historians, the battle was fought in 1603. It was not Glengarry (Donald, 7th of Glengarry, who died in 1645, aged 102), but his eldest son Angus, ‘Young Glengarry,’ who was killed.
[263] Now called Glenshiel. The church was erected in the hamlet of Muick.
[264] It is hardly likely that the Macraes will accept this suggestion of descent without strong corroboration which does not seem to exist. A very different origin is given by the Rev. Roderick Morison, minister of Kintail in 1793: ‘It is generally allowed that the Mac Raes emigrated from the braes of Aird, on the Lovat estate, to this place, though what induced them to prefer the mountains to the plains is not universally agreed upon, yet certain it is, that long after their residence in Kintail, they maintained a firm alliance with the Frasers of Aird. The tradition which prevails, that an inscription was set up nigh the entrance to Lovat House, bearing “That no Mac Rae must lodge without, when a Fraser resides within,” is not wholly without foundation. When the Mac Raes first entered Kintail, there were several clans inhabiting it, particularly the Mac Aulays, of whom no vestige now remains. The Mac Lennans, a small tribe in the parish of Glensheal, were the only people that would not yield. These Mac Lennans, at the battle of Auldearn, were intrusted with Seaforth’s colours. The novelty of the preferment roused them to action and stubborn resistance, which proved fatal to the clan, for many were slain; and their widows, 18 in number, were afterwards married to Mac Raes. The boundaries which divide the Mac Raes from the Mac Lennans are marked by a river which runs into Lochduich; but common observation may easily trace a line of distinction from the difference in their language and accent.’ Mr. Morison gives the derivation of the name as Mhac Ragh, the son of good fortune, applied by the founder to his son after some successful exploits.—(Statistical Account of Scotland, vi. 242; the story of the great slaughter of Maclellans at Auldearn is modified by latest investigators.) The word Ragh or Rath may mean either ‘good fortune’ or ‘grace,’ and the latest clan historian, Rev. Alex. Macrae, is of opinion that the name has an ecclesiastical origin as the ‘son of grace’ applied to a holy man of old. Relying on tradition, he inclines to believe that the Macraes were from Clunes in the Aird and were of common origin with the Mackenzies and Macleans.
The Kintail Macraes were not out in ’45. There was, however, a certain Captain MacRaw in Glengarry’s regiment; he attended Prince Charles when in Lochaber during his wanderings; also a Lieut. Alexander M‘Ra from Banff; and one of the French officers taken prisoner at sea on the voyage to Scotland, was Captain James Macraith of Berwick’s regiment. Gilchrist Macgrath or M‘Kra entertained the Prince in Glen Shiel in his wanderings. Murdoch M‘Raw, ‘nearest relation to the chieftain of that name,’ was barbarously hanged as a spy at Inverness protesting his innocence. (L. in M., i. 205, 342; iii. 378; ii. 205, 299.)
[265] See Dickson, The Jacobite Attempt of 1719 (Scot. Hist. Soc., vol. xix.).
[266] The Long Island is the name given to the chain of the outer Hebrides from the Butt of Lewis to Barra Head, comprising Lewis and Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriska, Barra and Mingulay.
[267] The story of the transference of the lands of the ancient and powerful family of Macleod of Lewis to the Mackenzies is one of the most pitiful in Highland history. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, Roderick (or Ruari) Macleod, the last undisputed Macleod of Lewis, married, as his first wife, a natural daughter of John Mackenzie of Kintail. The wife eloped, the son, named Torquil Connanach, was repudiated. Torquil was brought up at Strath Connan (hence his ‘to-name’) by the Mackenzies, who embraced his cause. From that moment the family of Lewis was doomed. Partly by purchase, partly by marriage, but largely by intrigue and violence the lands of Macleod were acquired by the Mackenzies. Lewis was driven to anarchy; feuds of the worst type ensued, father against sons, brothers murdering brothers. Government interfered; Lewis was forfeited and parcelled out among Lowland colonist-adventurers, who were thwarted by the Mackenzies, and at last were glad to go, and in 1610 to dispose of their rights to Mackenzie, who had become Lord Kintail the previous year. Any rights that remained to his cousin Torquil Macleod were made over to the Mackenzies. Meantime, in 1605, Kintail’s brother Roderick had married the daughter and heiress of Torquil, and became possessed of the mainland property of Coigeach. As soon as the Mackenzies obtained the island, they promptly restored order; the remaining members of the old Macleod family were murdered or driven out under a commission of fire and sword. Kintail’s son became an earl in 1623, and took his title from Loch Seaforth in Lewis, while his uncle Roderick, tutor of Kintail, terrible and ruthless (of whom the Gaelic proverb says ‘there are two things worse than the Tutor of Kintail, frost in spring and mist in the dog-days’), built a castle in Strathpeffer, which he called Castle Leod, and when his grandson obtained the earldom of Cromarty in 1685, the second title then assumed was that of ‘Lord Macleod,’ to show that the heritage of the old family of Macleod of Lewis remained with him.
[268] Roderick Macneill of Barra was from home when Prince Charles landed in the neighbouring island of Eriska, July ’45. He took no active part in the rising but was arrested on suspicion in July ’46, taken to London, released in ’47.
[269] For the Macdonald divisions and claims, see Appendix,
[270] John Mackinnon of Mackinnon was the only one of the three Skye chiefs who went out. He joined with his clan at Edinburgh, and served throughout the campaign, but was absent on duty in Sutherland when Culloden was fought. He was attainted. Prince Charles went to him in his wanderings, and the chief conducted him from Skye to the mainland, for which service he was made prisoner, taken to London, but released in July ’47. He died in Skye, in ’56, aged 75 years. He was a son-in-law of Archbishop Sharpe of St. Andrews.