Variation 1st.
Doubling of Variation 1st.
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Lauchlan, chief of Mackintosh, in whose time these events happened, died in 1407, at a good old age. In consequence of his age and infirmity, his kinsman, Shaw Mackintosh, had headed the thirty clan Chattan champions at Perth, and for his success was rewarded with the possession of the lands of Rothiemurchus in Badenoch. The next chief, Ferquhard, was compelled by his clansmen to resign his post in consequence of his mild, inactive disposition, and his uncle Malcolm (son of William Mac-Angus by a second marriage) succeeded as 10th chief of Mackintosh, and 5th captain of clan Chattan. Malcolm was one of the most warlike and successful of the Mackintosh chiefs. During his long chiefship of nearly fifty years, he made frequent incursions into the Cameron territories, and waged a sanguinary war with the Comyns, in which he recovered the lands taken from his ancestor. In 1411 he was one of the principal commanders in the army of Donald, Lord of the Isles, in the battle of Harlaw, where he is by some stated incorrectly to have been killed. In 1429, when Alexander, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross; broke out into rebellion at the head of 10,000 men, on the advance of the king into Lochaber, the clan Chattan and the clan Cameron deserted the earl’s banners, went over to the royal army, and fought on the royal side, the rebels being defeated. In 1431, Malcolm Mackintosh, captain of the clan Chattan, received a grant of the lands of Alexander of Lochaber, uncle of the Earl of Ross, that chieftain having been forfeited for engaging in the rebellion of Donald Balloch. Having afterwards contrived to make his peace with the Lord of the Isles, he received from him, between 1443 and 1447, a confirmation of his lands in Lochaber, with a grant of the office of bailiary of that district. His son, Duncan, styled captain of the clan Chattan in 1467, was in great favour with John, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, whose sister, Flora, he married, and who bestowed on him the office of steward of Lochaber, which had been held by his father. He also received the lands of Keppoch and others included in that lordship.
On the forfeiture of his brother-in-law in 1475, James III. granted to the same Duncan Mackintosh a charter, of date July 4th, 1476, of the lands of Moymore, and various others, in Lochaber. When the king in 1493 proceeded in person to the West Highlands, Duncan Mackintosh, captain of the clan Chattan, was one of the chiefs, formerly among the vassals of the Lord of the Isles, who went to meet him and make their submission to him. These chiefs received in return royal charters of the lands they had previously held under the Lord of the Isles, and Mackintosh obtained a charter of the lands of Keppoch, Innerorgan, and others, with the office of bailiary of the same. In 1495, Farquhar Mackintosh, his son, and Kenneth Oig Mackenzie of Kintail, were imprisoned by the king in Edinburgh castle. Two years thereafter, Farquhar, who seems about this time to have succeeded his father as captain of the clan Chattan, and Mackenzie, made their escape from Edinburgh castle, but, on their way to the Highlands, they were seized at Torwood by the laird of Buchanan. Mackenzie, having offered resistance, was slain, but Mackintosh was taken alive, and confined at Dunbar, where he remained till after the battle of Flodden.
Farquhar was succeeded by his cousin, William Mackintosh, who had married Isabel M’Niven, heiress of Dunnachtan: but John Roy Mackintosh, the head of another branch of the family, attempted by force to get himself recognised as captain of the clan Chattan, and failing in his design, he assassinated his rival at Inverness in 1515. Being closely pursued, however, he was overtaken and slain at Glenesk. Lauchlan Mackintosh, the brother of the murdered chief, was then placed at the head of the clan. He is described by Bishop Lesley[191] as “a verrie honest and wyse gentleman, an barroun of gude rent, quha keipit hes hole ken, friendes and tennentis in honest and guid rewll.” The strictness with which he ruled his clan raised him up many enemies among them, and, like his brother, he was cut off by the hand of an assassin. “Some wicked persons,” says Lesley, “being impatient of virtuous living, stirred up one of his own principal kinsmen, called James Malcolmson, who cruelly and treacherously slew his chief.” This was in the year 1526. To avoid the vengeance of that portion of the clan by whom the chief was beloved, Malcolmson and his followers took refuge in the island in the loch of Rothiemurchus, but they were pursued to their hiding place, and slain there.
Lauchlan had married the sister of the Earl of Moray, and by her had a son, William, who on his father’s death was but a child. The clan therefore made choice of Hector Mackintosh, a bastard son of Farquhar, the chief who had been imprisoned in 1495, to act as captain till the young chief should come of age. The consequences of this act have already been narrated in their proper place in the General History. On attaining the age of manhood William duly became head of the clan, and having been well brought up by the Earls of Moray and Cassilis, both his near relatives, was, according to Lesley, “honoured as a perfect pattern of virtue by all the leading men of the Highlands.” During the life of his uncle, the Earl of Moray, his affairs prospered; but shortly after that noble’s death, he became involved in a feud with the Earl of Huntly. He was charged with the heinous offence of conspiring against Huntly, the queen’s lieutenant, and at a court held by Huntly at Aberdeen, on the 2d August 1550, was tried and convicted by a jury, and sentenced to lose his life and lands. Being immediately carried to Strathbogie, he was beheaded soon after by Huntly’s countess, the earl himself having given a pledge that his life should be spared. The story is told, though with grave errors, by Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather.[192] By Act of Parliament of 14th December 1557, the sentence was reversed as illegal, and the son of Mackintosh was restored to all his father’s lands, to which Huntly added others as assythment for the blood. But this act of atonement on Huntly’s part was not sufficient to efface the deep grudge owed him by the clan Chattan on account of the execution of their chief, and he was accordingly thwarted by them in many of his designs.
In the time of this earl’s grandson, the clan Chattan again came into collision with the powerful Gordons, and for four years a deadly feud raged between them. In consequence of certain of Huntly’s proceedings, especially the murder of the Earl of Moray, a strong faction was formed against him, Lauchlan, 16th chief of Mackintosh, taking a prominent part. A full account of these disturbances in 1624 has already been given in its place in the General History.
In this feud Huntly succeeded in detaching the Macphersons belonging to the Cluny branch from the rest of clan Chattan, but the majority of that sept, according to the MS. history of the Mackintoshes, remained true to the chief of Mackintosh. These allies, however, were deserted by Huntly when he became reconciled to Mackintosh, and in 1609 Andrew Macpherson of Cluny, with all the other principal men of clan Chattan, signed a bond of union, in which they all acknowledged the chief of Mackintosh as captain and chief of clan Chattan. The clan Chattan were in Argyll’s army at the battle of Glenlivat in 1595, and with the Macleans formed the right wing, which made the best resistance to the Catholic earls, and was the last to quit the field.