actual inventor of the whole story, it must have taken its rise not
very long before his day, for, he says, "no trace of it is to be
found in the Irish MSS., the history of the Geraldine family knows
nothing of it, and MacVureach, who must have been acquainted with
the popular history of the western clans, was equally unacquainted
with it." ['Celtic Scotland,' Vol. III., pp. 351-354.]
This fully corroborates all that was said in the preceding pages
regarding the Fitzgerald-Irish origin of the Mackenzies and which
every intelligent clansman, however biassed, must now admit in his
inner consciousness to be fully and finally disposed of. Having,
however, quoted Skene's earlier views on the general claim by
the Highland chiefs for alien progenitors it may be well to give
here his more mature conclusions from his later and greater work,
especially as some people, who have not taken the trouble to read
what he writes, have been saying that the great Celtic historian
had seen cause to change his views on these important points in
Highland genealogy since he wrote his 'Highlands and Highlanders'
in 1839. After examining them all very closely and exhaustively
in a long and learned chapter of some forty pages, he says -
"The conclusion, then, to which this analysis of the clan pedigrees
which have been popularly accepted at different times has brought
us, is that, so far as they profess to show the origin of the
different clans, they are entirely artificial and untrustworthy,
but that the older genealogies may be accepted as showing the descent
of the clan from its eponymus or founder, and within reasonable
limits for some generations beyond him, while the later spurious
pedigrees must be rejected altogether. It may seem surprising that
such spurious and fabulous origins should be so readily credited
by the clan families as genuine traditions, and receive such prompt
acceptance as the true fount from which they sprung; but we must
recollect that the fabulous history of Hector Boece was as rapidly
and universally adopted as the genuine annals of the national
history, and became rooted in those parts of the country to
which its fictitious events related as local traditions." ['Celtic
Scotland,' Vol. III., p. 364.]
The final decision to which Dr Skene comes in his great work is
that the clans, properly so called, were of native origin, and that
the surnames adopted by them were partly of native and partly of
foreign descent. Among these native Highland clans he unhesitatingly
classes the Mackenzies, the clan Gillie-Andres or Rosses, and the
Mathesons, all of whom belong, he says, to the tribe of Ross. In
his first work on the Highlands and Highland Clans he draws the
general deduction, based on all our existing MS. genealogies, that
the clans were divided into several great tribes, descended from
a common ancestor, but he at the same time makes a marked distinction
between the different tribes which, by indications traceable in
each, can be identified with the earldoms or maormorships into
which the North of Scotland was originally divided. By the aid
of the old genealogies he divides the clans into five different
tribes in the following order:- (1) The descendants of Conn of the
Hundred Battles; (2) of Ferchar Fata Mac Feradaig; (3) of Cormaig
Mac Obertaig; (4) of Fergus Leith Dearg; and (5) of Krycul. In
the third of these divisions he includes the old Earls of Ross,
the Mackenzies, the Mathesons, and several other clans, and to this
classification he adheres, after the most mature consideration,
in his later and greater work, the 'History of Celtic Scotland.'
THE REAL CELTIC ORIGIN.
It is now most interesting to know who the ancient Earls of Ross,
from whom the Mackenzies are really descended, were. The first of
these earls of whom we have any record is Malcolm Mac Heth to whom
Malcolm IV. gave Ross in 1157, with the title of Earl of Ross, but
the inhabitants rose against him and drove him out of the district.
Wyntoun mentions an Earl "Gillandrys," a name which we believe
is derived from the common ancestor of the Mackenzies and Rosses,
"Gilleoin-Ard-Rois," as one of the six Celtic earls who besieged
King Malcolm at Perth in 1160. Skene is also of opinion that this
Gillandres represented the old Celtic earls of Ross, as the clan
bearing the name of Ross are called in Gaelic Clann Ghilleanrias,
or descendants of Gillandres, and may, he thinks, have led the
revolt which drove Malcolm Mac Heth out of the earldom. The same
King, two years after the incident at Perth, gave the earldom of
Ross to Florence, Count of Holland, on that nobleman's marriage with
His Majesty's sister Ada, in 1162, but the new earl never secured
practical possession ['Celtic Scotland,' Vol. III., pp. 66-67.] He
is, however, found claiming it as late as 1179, in the reign of
William the Lion.
The district of Ross is often mentioned in the Norse Sagas along
with the other parts of the country then governed by Maormors or
Jarls, and Skene in his earlier work says that it was only on the
downfall of those of Moray that the chiefs of Ross appear prominent
in historical records, the Maormors of Moray being in such close
proximity to them and so great in power and influence that the
less powerful Maormor of Ross held only a comparatively subordinate
position, and his name was in consequence seldom or never associated
with any of the great events of that early period in Highland
history. It was only after the disappearance of those district
potentates that the chiefs appear under the appellation of
Comites or Earls. That most, if not all, of these earls were the
descendants of the ancient maormors there can be little doubt,
and the natural presumption in this instance is strengthened by
the fact that all the old authorities concur in asserting that
the Gaelic name of the original Earls of Ross was O'Beolan - a
corruption of Gilleoin, or Gillean, na h`Airde - or the descendants
of Beolan. "And we actually find," says the same authority, "from
the oldest Norse Saga connected with Scotland that a powerful chief
in the North of Scotland named O'Beolan, married the daughter of
Ganga Rolfe, or Rollo, the celebrated pirate who became afterwards
the celebrated Earl of Normandy." If this view is well-founded
the ancestor of the Earls of Ross was chief in Kintail as early as
the beginning of the tenth century. We have seen that the first
Earl of Ross recorded in history was Malcolm Mac Heth, to whom
a precept is found, directed by Malcolm IV., requesting him to
protect the monks of Dunfermline and defend them in their lawful
privileges and possessions. The document is not dated, but judging
from the names of the witnesses attesting it, the precept must have
been issued before 1162. It will be remembered that Mac Heth was
one of the six Celtic earls who besieged the King at Perth two
years before, in 1160. William the Lion, who seems to have kept
the earldom in his own hands for several years, in 1179 marched
into the district at the head of his earls and barons, accompanied
by a large army, and subdued an insurrection fomented by the
local chiefs against his authority. On this occasion he built two
castles within its bounds, one called Dunscath on the northern
Sutor at the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, and Redcastle in the
Black Isle. In the same year we find Florence, Count of Holland,
complaining that he had been deprived of its nominal ownership
by King William. There is no trace of any other earl in actual
possession until we come to Ferquard or "Ferchair Mac an t' Sagairt,"
Farquhar the son of the Priest, who rose rapidly to power on the
ruins of the once powerful Mac Heth earls of Moray, of which line
Kenneth Mac Heth, who, with Donald Ban, led a force into Moray
against Alexander II., son of William the Lion, in 1215, was
the last. Of this raid the following account is given in 'Celtic
Scotland,' Vol. I. p. 483:
"The young king had barely reigned a year when be had to encounter
the old enemies of the Crown, the families of Mac William and
Mac Eth, who now combined their forces under Donald Ban, the son
of that Mac William who bad been slain at Mamgarvie in 1187, and
Kenneth Mac Eth, a son or grandson of Malcolm Mac Eth, with the son
of one of the Irish provincial kings, and burst into the Province
of Moray at the head of a large band of malcontents. A very
important auxiliary, however, now joined the party of the king.
This was Ferquhard or Fearchar Macintagart, the son of the 'Sagart'
or priest who was the lay possessor of the extensive possessions
of the old monastery founded by the Irish Saint Maelrubba at
Applecross in the seventh century. Its possessions lay between the
district of Ross and the Western Sea and extended from Lochcarron
to Loch Ewe and Loch Maree, and Ferquhard was thus in reality a
powerful Highland chief commanding the population of an extensive
western region. The insurgents were assailed by him with great
vigour, entirely crushed, and their leaders taken, who be at once
beheaded and presented their heads to the new king as a welcome
gift on the 15th of June, when he was knighted by the king as a
reward for his prompt assistance."
The district then known as North Argyle consisted chiefly of the
possessions of this ancient monastery of Appercrossan or Applecross.
Its inhabitants had hitherto - along with those of South Argyle,
which extended from Lochcarron to the Firth of Clyde - maintained
a kind of semi-independence, but in 1222 they were, by their
lay possessor, Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt, who was apparently the
grandson or great-grandson of Gillandres, one of the six earls
who besieged Malcolm IV. at Perth in 1160, brought into closer
connection with the crown. The lay Abbots of which Ferquhard
was the head were the hereditary possessors of all the extensive
territories which had for centuries been ruled and owned by this
old and powerful Celtic monastery. As a reward for his services
against the men of Moray in 1215 and for the great services which,
in 1222, he again rendered to the King in the subjugation of the
whole district then known as Argyle, extending from the Clyde to
Lochbroom, he received additional honours. In that campaign known
as "the Conquest of Argyle," Ferquhard led most of the western
tribes, and for his prowess, the Celtic earldom, which was then finally
annexed to the Crown and made a feudal appanage, was conferred on
him with the title of Earl of Ross, and he is so designated in a
charter dated 1234. He is again on record, under the same title,
in 1235 and 1236. Regarding an engagement which took place between
Alexander II. and the Gallowegians, in 1235, the Chronicle of
Melrose says, that "at the beginning of the battle the Earl of
Ross, called Macintagart, came up and attacked the enemies (of
the King) in the rear, and as soon as they perceived this they
took to flight and retreated into the woods and mountains, but they
were followed up by the Earl and several others, who put many of
them to the sword, and harassed them as long as daylight lasted."
In 'Celtic Scotland,' Vol. II, p.412, it is stated that the
hereditary lay priests of which he was the chief "according to
tradition, bore the name of O'Beollan"; and MacVuirich, in the Black
Book of Clanranald, says that from Ferquhard was descended
Gillapatrick the Red, son of Roderick, and known traditionally as the
Red Priest, whose daughter, at a later date, married and carried the
monastery lands of Lochalsh and Lochcarron to the Macdonalds of the
Isles.
In one of the Norse Sagas the progenitor of Ferquhard is designated
"King," just the same as the great Somerled and some of his
descendants had been called at a later date. Referring to Helgi,
son of Ottar, the Landnamabok Saga records that "he made war upon
Scotland and carried off prisoner Nidbjorga, the daughter of King
Bjolan, and of Kadliner, daughter or Ganga Rolf," or Rollo, who,
as already stated, afterwards became the celebrated Earl of Normandy.
Writing of Alexander, third Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles,
Hugh Macdonald, the Sleat historian, says that -
"He was a man born to much trouble all his life time. First he
took to him the concubine daughter of Patrick Obeolan, surnamed
the Red, who was a very beautiful woman. This surname Obeolan
was the surname of the Earls of Ross, till Farquhar, born in Ross,
was created earl by King Alexander, and so carried the name of
Ross since, as best answering the English tongue. This Obeolan
had its descent of the ancient tribe of Manapii; of this tribe
is also St. Rice or Ruffus. Patrick was an Abbot and had Carlebay
in the Lewis, and the Church lands in that country, with 18 mark
lands in Lochbroom. He bad two sons and a daughter. The sons
were called Normand and Austin More, so called from his excessive
strength and corpulency. This Normand had daughters that were
great beauties, one of whom was married to Mackay of Strathnavern
one to Dugall MacRanald, Laird of Mudort; one to MacLeod of Assint;
one to MacDuffie; and another, the first, to Maclean of Bororay.
Patrick's daughter bore a son to Alexander, Lord of the Isles and
Earl of Ross, who was called Austin (Uisdean or Hugh) or as others
say, Augustine. She was twice before the King, as Macdonald could
not be induced to part with her, on occasion of her great beauty.
The King said, that it was no wonder that such a fair damsel had
enticed Macdonald." ['Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis,' pp. 304-305.]
It is not intended here to discuss whether Hugh of Sleat and his
elder brother Celestine of Lochalsh were illegitimate or not.
They were so called by their father, Earl Alexander, and by their
brother, Earl John. The first describes Celestine as "filius
naturalis" in a charter preserved in the Mackintosh charter
chest, dated 1447, and Earl John calls his brother Austin or Hugh
"frater carnalis" in two charters, dated respectively 1463 and
1470. This goes far to corroborate the Sleat historian, who was not
the least likely to introduce illegitimacy into his own favourite
family unless the charge was really true. It is instructive to
find that Celestine succeeded to all the lands of the monastery
of Applecross in Lochalsh, Lochcarron, and Lochbroom. These lay
abbots are also said to have held, under the old Earls of Ross,
the Sleat district of the Isle of Skye, which Hugh, first of that
family, is alleged to have inherited through his mother, daughter
of the Red Priest and a descendant of Farquhar Mac an t'Sagairt, Earl
of Ross. It will be observed also that Austin, Uisdean, or Hugh,
a common name among the Applecross and old Earl of Ross dynasty,
comes into the Macdonald family for the first time at this period,
after Earl Alexander of the Macdonald line had formed a union with
the daughter of the last lay Abbot of Applecross. Skene distinctly
affirms that Hugh Macdonald of Sleat was the son of Earl Alexander
by a daughter of this Gille-Padruig ('Celtic Scotland,' Vol. III. p.
298) while Gregory suggests that the words naturalis and carnalis
used by Hugh's father and brother in the charters already quoted
"were used to designate the issue of those handfast or left-handed
marriages which appear to have been so common in the Highlands
and Isles." ['Western Highlands and Isles,' p.41] Whether the Sleat
district of Skye was or was not carried for the first time to the
Macdonald Earls of Ross and Lords of the Isles by this union with
a member of the family of the original O'Beolan Earls, it is
perfectly clear that the latter had an intimate connection with
the Sleat district at a much earlier period.
Saint Maelrubba, who is first heard of in Britain in 671, two years
later, in 673, founded the original Church of Applecross "from
which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts
lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south and
west parts of the Island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter
Ross and elsewhere." ['Celtic Scotland,' Vol. II. p. 166.] It is
at least interesting to find these lands going to and afterwards
remaining in possession of the two sons of Earl Alexander who are
said to have been illegitimate, when all their other enormous
possessions were in 1493 finally forfeited to the Crown. Hugh,
who possessed Sleat during the life of his father and brother,
receives a Crown charter of these lands under the Great Seal two
years after, in 1495, although his brother John, fourth and last
Lord of the Isles, was still alive, his death not having occurred
until 1498, three years later.
Sir Robert Gordon ('Earldom of Scotland,' p. 36) shows that the
Rosses were originally designated O'Beolan and Gillanders
indiscriminately, according to the writer's or speaker's fancy.
He says that -
"From the second son of the Earl of Ross the lairds of Balnagowan
are descended, and had by inheritance the lands of Rariechies and
Coulleigh, where you may observe that the laird of Balnagowan's
surname should not be Ross, seeing that there was never any Earl
of Ross of that surname; but the Earls of Ross were first of the
surname of Beolan, then they were Leslies, and last of all that
earldom fell by inheritance to the Lords of the Isles, who resigned
the same unto king James the Third's bands, in the year of God
1477. So I do think that the lairds of Balnagowan, perceiving the
Earls of Ross decayed, and that earldom, fallen into the Lords of
the Isles' hands, they called themselves Ross thereby to testify
their descent from the Earls of Ross. Besides, all the Rosses in that
province are Unto this day called in the Irish (Gaelic) language
Clan Leandries, which race by their own tradition is sprung from
another stock."
In the same work, p. 46, we find that the Earls of Ross were called
O'Beolans as late as 1333, for Sir Robert informs us, writing of
the battle of Halidon Hill, that "in this field was Hugh Beolan,
Earl of Ross, slain."
It is established to the satisfaction of all reasonable men that
the Applecross and O'Beolan Earls of Ross were one and the same,
and that they were descended from Gilleoin na h' Airde, corrupted
in the Norse Sagas into "Beolan," the general designation by which
they were known, until Earl William, the last of his line, died
without surviving male issue on the 9th of February, 1372, when the
title devolved upon his daughter, Euphemia, Countess of Ross in her
own right, whose daughter, Mary, or Margaret, by Sir Walter Leslie,
carried the earldom to Donald of Harlaw, second Lord of the Isles.
That the O'Beolan Earls of Ross, of whom Ferquhard Mac an t'Sagairt
was the first, descended from the same ancestor, Gilleoin na h' Airde,
as the older "Gillandres" earl of 1160, is equally certain. Earl
Gillandres as probably forfeited for the part he took against
Malcolm IV. on that occasion, and Ferquhard having rendered such
important services to Alexander II. was restored probably quite as
much in virtue of his ancient rights as the grandson of Ferquhard as
on account of his valiant conduct in support of the crown in Moray,
in Argyle, and in Galloway, in 1215, 1222, and 1235.
The surname Ross has in early times been invariably rendered in
Gaelic as Gilleanrias, or Gillanders, and the Rosses appear under
this appellation in all the early Acts of Parliament. There is
also an unvarying tradition that on the death of the last Earl of
the O'Beolan line a certain Paul Mac Tire was for some years head
of the Rosses, and this tradition is corroborated by the fact
that there is a charter on record by Earl William of the lands of
Gairloch in 1366 in favour of Paul Mac Tire and his heirs by Mary
Graham, in which the Earl styles Mac Tire his cousin. This grant
was confirmed by King Robert II. in 1372. In the manuscript of
1467 the genealogy of Clann Gille-Anrias, or the descendants of
Gillean-Ard-Rois, begins with a Paul Mac Tire. The clan whose
genealogy is there given is undoubtedly that of the Rosses, and
in the manuscript they are traced upwards from Paul MacTire in a
direct line to Gilleon na h'Airde, the "Beolan" of the Norse Sagas,
who lived in the tenth century, and who will be shown to be also
the remote progenitor of the Mackenzies. The Aird referred to is
said to be the Aird of Ross.
In the manuscript of 1467 the name Gille-Anrias appears
in the genealogies of both the Mackenzies and the Rosses exactly
contemporaneous with the generation which preceded the original
grant to "Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt" of the Earldom of Ross. The
name Gille-Anrias has been rendered as the Gaelic equivalent for
Servant of Andrew, or St. Andrew, and that, according to Skene,
would seem to indicate that the first of that name, if not a priest
himself, must have belonged to the priestly house of Appercrossan
or Applecross, of which Earl Farquhar ultimately became the head.
The dates exactly correspond; and when, in addition to this, it
is remembered that of the earls who besieged Malcolm IV. at Perth
in 1160 one was named "Gillandres" it seems fully established that
Ferchard Mac an t'Sagairt was descended from the original earls
and that he was entitled to the earldom by ancient right on the
failure or forfeiture of the direct representative of the old line,
as well as by a new creation. Although there may have been one
or two usurpers - a common event in those turbulent times - Ferquhard
was undoubtedly a near relative and the legitimate successor
of the Celtic "Gillandres" earl of 1160. He is described in the
'Chronicle of Melrose' as "Comes Rossensis Machentagard," and in
Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland as "Mc Kentagar," a designation
which the author describes in a footnote as "an unintelligible
word," though its meaning is perfectly plain to every Gaelic-speaking
Celt.
Ferquhard founded the Abbey of Fearn, in Easter Ross, about 1230,
and died there in 1251.
Referring to his position during the first half of the thirteenth
century even the Earl of Cromartie is forced to admit in his MS., a
copy of which we possess, that "it cannot be disputed that the Earl
of Ross was the Lord paramount under Alexander II., by whom Farquhard
Mac an t'Sagairt was recognised in the hereditary dignity of his
predecessors, and who, by another tradition, was a real progenitor of
the noble family of Kintail." And this was said and written by an
author, who, in another part of the same manuscript, stoutly maintains
that the king granted these identical lands to Colin Fitzgerald by a
charter which, if it was ever signed at all, must have been signed a
full generation before the date which the forged document bears -
thirty years after the witnesses whose names attest it had gone to
their last home.
THE O'BEOLAN EARLS OF ROSS.
It must now be most interesting to every member of the Clan Mackenzie
to know who these O'Beolan Earls of Ross were and all that can
be ascertained regarding themselves and their family alliances.
Leaving out Earl Gillanders, of whom so little is known, let us begin
with
I. FERQUHARD, OR FARQUHAR O'BEOLAN, "Mac an t'Sagairt,"
who, as already stated, founded the Abbey of Fearn, and died there
in 1251. By his wife, whose name has not come down to us, he had
issue, at least,
1. William, his heir and successor.
2. Malcolm, of whose life nothing is known.
3. Euphemia, who married Walter de Moravia, Lord of Duffus from
1224 to 1262.
4. Christina, who married Olave the Red, King of Man, with issue.
Farquhar was succeeded by his eldest son,
II. WILLIAM O'BEOLAN, EARL OF ROSS. He obtained Skye and
Lewis from Alexander III. and died at Earles Allane in 1274. He
married Joan daughter of the first Red Comyn, who died in 1273,
and sister of John, the Black Comyn, Lord of Badenoch and Earl
of Buchan, who married Marjory, sister of King John Baliol, with
issue - the Red Comyn, who was killed by Robert the Bruce in the
Church of Dumfries in 1306. Another sister of the Countess of
Ross was married to John Macdougall, Lord of Lorn, on record in 1251,
usually styled "King Eoin or Ewin." By his wife Earl William
had issue -
1. William, his heir and successor.
2. Dorothea, who married her cousin, Torquil Macleod II. of Lewis,
with issue.
He was succeeded by his only son,