Robert, the 14th baron, fell at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. Robert More Munro, the 15th chief, was a faithful friend of Mary, queen of Scots. Buchanan states, that when that unfortunate princess went to Inverness in 1562, “as soon as they heard of their sovereign’s danger, a great number of the most eminent Scots poured in around her, especially the Frasers and Munroes, who were esteemed the most valiant of the clans inhabiting those countries.” These two clans took for the Queen Inverness castle, which had refused her admission.
With the Mackenzies the Munroes were often at feud, and Andrew Munro of Milntown defended, for three years, the castle of the canonry of Ross, which he had received from the Regent Moray in 1569, against the clan Kenzie, at the expense of many lives on both sides. It was, however, afterwards delivered up to the Mackenzies under the act of pacification.
The chief, Robert More Munro, became a Protestant at an early period of the Scottish Reformation. He died in 1588. His son, Robert, sixteenth baron of Foulis, died without issue in July 1589, and was succeeded by his brother, Hector Munro, seventeenth baron of Foulis. The latter died 14th November 1603.
Hector’s eldest son, Robert Munro, eighteenth chief of Foulis, styled “the Black Baron,” was the first of his house who engaged in the religious wars of Gustavus Adolphus, in the 17th century. In 1626 he went over with the Scottish corps of Sir Donald Mackay, first Lord Reay, accompanied by six other officers of his name and near kindred. Doddridge says of him, that “the worthy Scottish gentleman was so struck with a regard to the common cause, in which he himself had no concern but what piety and virtue gave him, that he joined Gustavus with a great number of his friends who bore his own name. Many of them gained great reputation in this war, and that of Robert, their leader, was so eminent that he was made colonel of two regiments at the same time, the one of horse, the other of foot in that service.” In 1629 the laird of Foulis raised a reinforcement of 700 men on his own lands, and at a later period joined Gustavus with them. The officers of Mackay’s and Munro’s Highland regiments who served under Gustavus Adolphus, in addition to rich buttons, wore a gold chain round their necks, to secure the owner, in case of being wounded or taken prisoner, good treatment, or payment for future ransom. In the service of Gustavus, there were at one time not less than “three generals, eight colonels, five lieutenant-colonels, eleven majors, and above thirty captains, all of the name of Munro, besides a great number of subalterns.”
The “Black Baron” died at Ulm, from a wound in his foot, in the year 1633, and leaving no male issue, he was succeeded by his brother, Hector Munro, nineteenth baron of Foulis, who had also distinguished himself in the German wars, and who, on his return to Britain, was created by Charles I. a baronet of Nova Scotia, 7th June 1634. He married Mary, daughter of Hugh Mackay of Farr, and dying in 1635, in Germany, was succeeded by his only son, Sir Hector, second baronet, who died, unmarried, in 1651, at the age of 17. The title and property devolved on his cousin, Robert Munro of Opisdale, grandson of George, third son of the fifteenth baron of Foulis.
During the civil wars at home, when Charles I. called to his aid some of the veteran officers who had served in Germany, this Colonel Robert Munro was one of them. He was employed chiefly in Ireland from 1641 to 1645, when he was surprised and taken prisoner personally by General Monk. He was subsequently lieutenant-general of the royalist troops in Scotland, when he fought a duel with the Earl of Glencairn. Afterwards he joined Charles II. in Holland. After the Revolution he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland.
Sir Robert Munro, third baronet of Foulis, died in 1688, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir John, fourth baronet, who, in the Scottish convention of estates, proved himself to be a firm supporter of the Revolution. He was such a strenuous advocate of Presbyterianism, that, being a man of large frame, he was usually called “the Presbyterian mortar-piece.” In the Stuart persecutions, previous to his succession to the title, he had, for his adherence to the covenant, been both fined and imprisoned by the tyrannical government that then ruled in Scotland. He died in 1696. His son, Sir Robert, fifth baronet, though blind, was appointed by George I. high sheriff of Ross, by commission, under the great seal, dated 9th June 1725. He married Jean, daughter of John Forbes of Culloden, and died in 1729.
His eldest son, Sir Robert, twenty-seventh baron and sixth baronet of Foulis, a gallant military officer, was the companion in arms of Colonel Gardiner, and fell at the battle of Falkirk, 17th January 1746.
In May 1740, when the Independent companies were formed into the 43d Highland regiment (now the 42d Royal Highlanders), Sir Robert Munro was appointed lieutenant-colonel, John Earl of Crawford and Lindsay being its colonel. Among the captains were his next brother, George Munro of Culcairn, and John Munro, promoted to be lieutenant-colonel in 1745. The surgeon of the regiment was his youngest brother, Dr James Munro.[215]