The ancient Chapel of Cilliechriost, in the parish of Urray, in
Ross-shire, was the scene of one of the bloodiest acts of ferocity and
revenge that history has recorded. The original building has long since
disappeared, but the lonely and beautifully situated burying-ground is
still in use. The tragedy originated in the many quarrels which arose
between two great chiefs of the North Highlands—Mackenzie of Kintail
and Macdonell of Glengarry. As usual, the dispute was regarding land,
but it is difficult to arrive at the degree of blame to which each
party was entitled; enough that there was bad blood between these
two paladins of the North. Of course, the quarrel was not allowed
to go to sleep for lack of action on the part of their friends and
clansmen. The Macdonells having made several raids on the Mackenzie
country, the Mackenzies retaliated by the spoiling of Morar with a
large, overwhelming force. The Macdonells, taking advantage of Kenneth
Mackenzie’s visit to Mull with the view to influence Maclean to induce
the former to peace, once more committed great devastation in the
Mackenzie country, under the leadership of Glengarry’s son, Angus. From
Kintail and Lochalsh the clan Mackenzie gathered fast, but too late to
prevent Macdonell from escaping to sea with his boats loaded with the
foray. A portion of the Mackenzies ran to Eileandonan, while another
portion sped to the narrow strait of the Kyle between Skye and the
mainland, through which the Macdonells, on their return, of necessity
must pass. At Eileandonan Lady Mackenzie furnished them with two boats,
one ten-oared and one four-oared, also with arrows and ammunition.
Though without their chief, the MacKenzies sallied forth, and rowing
towards Kyleakin, lay in wait for the approach of the Macdonells. The
first of the Glengarry boats they allowed to pass unchallenged, but
the second, which was the thirty-two-oared galley of the chief, was
furiously attacked. The unprepared Macdonells, rushing to the side of
the heavily loaded boat, swamped the craft, and were all thrown into
the sea, where they were dispatched in large numbers, and those who
escaped to the land were destroyed “by the Kintail men, who killed them
like sealchies.”
Time passed on, Donald Gruamach, the old chief, died ere he could
mature matters for adequate retaliation of the Kyle tragedy and the
loss of his son Angus. The chief of the clan was an infant in whom the
feelings of revenge could not be worked out by action; but there was
one, his cousin, who was the captain or leader, in whom the bitterest
thoughts exercised their fullest sway. It seems now impossible that
such acts could have occurred, and it gives one a startling idea of
the state of the country, when such a terrible instance of private
vengeance could have been carried out so recently as the beginning
of the seventeenth century, without any notice being taken of it,
even in those days of general blood and rapine. Notwithstanding the
hideousness of sacrilege and murder, which in magnitude of atrocity was
scarcely ever equalled, there are many living, even in the immediate
neighbourhood, who are ignorant of the cause of the act
Macranuil of Lundi, captain of the clan, whose personal prowess was
only equalled by his intense ferocity, made many incursions into the
Mackenzie country, sweeping away their cattle and otherwise doing them
serious injury; but these were but preludes to that sanguinary act on
which his soul gloated, and by which he hoped effectually to avenge
the loss of influence and property of which his clan was deprived by
the Mackenzies, and more particularly to wash out the records of the
death of his chief and clansman at Kyleakin. In order to form his plans
more effectually, he wandered for some time as a mendicant among the
Mackenzies, in order the more successfully to fix on the best means and
place for his revenge. A solitary life offered up to expiate the manes
of his relatives was not sufficient in his estimation, but the life’s
blood of such a number of his bitterest foemen, and an act at which the
country should stand aghast was absolutely necessary.
Returning home, he gathered together a number of the most desperate of
his clan, and by a forced march across the hills arrived at the Church
of Cilliechriost on a Sunday forenoon, when it was filled by a crowd of
worshippers of the clan Mackenzie. Without a moment’s delay, without a
single pang of remorse, and while the song of praise ascended to heaven
from fathers, mothers, and children, he surrounded the church with his
band, and with lighted torches set fire to the roof. The building was
thatched, and while a gentle breeze from the east fanned the fire,
the song of praise mingled with the crackling of the flames, until
the imprisoned congregation, becoming conscious of their situation,
rushed to the doors and windows, where they were met by a double row
of bristling swords. Now, indeed, arose the wild wail of despair,
the shrieks of women, the infuriated cries of men, and the helpless
screaming of children; these mingled with the roaring of the flames
appalled even the Macdonells, but not so Allan Dubh. ‘Thrust them back
into the flames,’ cried he, ‘for he that suffers aught to escape alive
from Cilliechriost shall be branded as a traitor to his clan;’ and they
were thrust back or mercilessly hewn down within the narrow porch,
until the dead bodies, piled upon each other, opposed an unsurmountable
barrier to the living. Anxious for the preservation of their young
children, the scorching mothers threw them from the windows in the
vain hope that the feelings of parents awakened in the breasts of the
Macdonells would induce them to spare them, but not so. At the command
of Allan of Lundi they were received on the points of the broadswords
of men in whose breasts mercy had no place. It was a wild and fearful
sight, only witnessed by a wild and fearful race. During the tragedy
they listened with delight to the piper of the band, who, marching
round the burning pile, played, to drown the screams of the victims, an
extempore pibroch, which has ever since been distinguished as the war
tune of Glengarry, under the title of ‘Cilliechriost.’ The flaming roof
fell upon the burning victims; soon the screams ceased to be heard, a
column of smoke and flame leapt into the air, the pibroch ceased, the
last smothering groan of existence ascended into the still sky of that
Sabbath morning, whispering as it died away that the agonies of the
congregation were over.
East, west, north, and south looked Allan Dubh Macranuil. Not a living
soul met his eye. The fire he kindled had destroyed, like the spirit
of desolation. Not a sound met his ear, and his own tiger soul sunk
within him in dismay. The parish of Cilliechriost seemed swept of every
living thing. The fearful silence that prevailed, in a quarter lately
so thickly peopled, struck his followers with dread: for they had given
in one hour the inhabitants of a whole parish one terrible grave. The
desert which they had created filled them with dismay, heightened into
terror by the howls of the masterless sheep dogs, and they turned to
fly. Worn out with the suddenness of their long march from Glengarry,
and with their late fiendish exertions, on their return they sat down
to rest on the green face of Glenconvinth, which route they took in
order to reach Lundi through the centre of Glenmoriston by Urquhart.
Before they fled from Cilliechriost, Allan divided his party into two,
one passing by Inverness and the other as already mentioned.
The Macdonells, however, were not allowed to escape, for the terrible
deed had roused the Mackenzies as effectually as if the fiery cross
had been sent through their territories. A youthful leader, a cadet
of the family of Seaforth, in an incredibly short time, found himself
surrounded by a determined band of Mackenzies eager for the fray; these
were also divided into two bodies, one commanded by Murdoch Mackenzie
of Redcastle, proceeded by Inverness, to follow the pursuit along the
southern side of Loch-Ness. Another, headed by Alexander Mackenzie of
Coul, struck across the country from Beauly, to follow the party of the
Macdonells who fled along the northern side of Loch-Ness under their
leader Allan Dubh Macranuil.
The party that fled by Inverness were surprised by Redcastle in a
public-house at Torbreck, three miles to the west of the town, where
they stopped to refresh themselves. The house was set on fire, and they
all—thirty-seven in number—suffered the death which, in the earlier
part of the day, they had so wantonly inflicted.
The Mackenzies, under Coul, after a few hours hard running, came up
with the Macdonells as they sought a brief repose on the hills towards
the burn of Aultsigh. There the Macdonells maintained an unequal
conflict; but as guilt only brings faint hearts to its unfortunate
votaries, they turned and again fled precipitately to the burn. Many,
however, missed the ford, and the channel being rough and rocky several
fell under the swords of the victorious Mackenzies. The remainder, with
all the speed they could make, held on for miles, lighted by a splendid
and cloudless moon, and when the rays of the morning burst upon them,
Allan Dubh Macranuil and his party were seen ascending the southern
ridge of Glen-Urquhart, with the Mackenzies close in their rear. Allan,
casting an eye behind him and observing the superior numbers and
determination of his pursuers, called upon his band to disperse, in
order to confuse his pursuers, and so divert the chase from himself.
This being done, he again set forward at the height of his speed, and
after a long run, drew breath to reconnoitre, when, to his dismay,
he found that the avenging Mackenzies were still on his track in one
unbroken mass. Again he divided his men and bent his flight towards the
shore of Loch-Ness, but still he saw the foe bearing down upon him with
redoubled vigour. Becoming fearfully alive to his position, he cried
to his few remaining companions again to disperse, until they left
him, one by one, and he was alone. Allan, who as a mark of superiority
and as Captain of the Glengarry Macdonells, always wore a red jacket,
was thus easily distinguished from the rest of his clansmen, and the
Mackenzies, being anxious for his capture, easily singled him out as
the object of their joint and undivided pursuit. Perceiving the sword
of vengeance ready to descend on his head, he took a resolution as
desperate in its conception as it was unequalled in its accomplishment.
Taking a short course towards the fearful ravine of Aultsigh, he
divested himself of his plaid and buckler, and turning to the leader of
the Mackenzies, who had nearly come up to him, beckoned him to follow,
then, with a few yards of a run, he sprang over the yawning chasm,
never before contemplated without a shudder. The agitation of his mind
at the moment completely overshadowed the danger of the attempt, and
being of an athletic frame, he succeeded in clearing the desperate
leap. The young and reckless Mackenzie, full of ardour and determined
at all hazards to capture the murderer, followed; but, being a stranger
to the real width of the chasm, perhaps of less nerve than his
adversary, and certainly not stimulated with the same feelings, he only
touched the opposite brink with his toes, and slipping downwards, he
clung by a slender shoot of hazel which grew over the tremendous abyss.
Allan Dubh, looking round on his pursuer and observing the agitation of
the hazel bush, immediately guessed the cause, and returning with the
ferocity of a demon who had succeeded in getting his victim into his
fangs, hoarsely whispered, ‘I have given much to your race this day, I
shall give them this also; surely now the debt is paid;’ then cutting
the hazel twig with his sword, the intrepid youth was dashed from crag
to crag until he reached the stream below, a bloody and misshapen mass.
Macranuil again commenced his flight, but one of the Mackenzies, who
by this time had come up, sent a musket shot after him, by which he
was wounded, and obliged to slacken his pace. None of his pursuers,
however, on coming up to Aultsigh, dared or dreamt of taking a leap
which had been so fatal to their youthful leader, and were therefore
under the necessity of taking a circuitous route to gain the other
side. This circumstance enabled Macranuil to increase the distance
between him and his pursuers, but the loss of blood, occasioned by
his wound, so weakened him that very soon he found his determined
enemies were fast gaining on him. Like an infuriated wolf he hesitated
whether to await the undivided attack of the Mackenzies or plunge into
Loch-Ness and attempt to swim across its waters. The shouts of his
approaching enemies soon decided him, and he sprung into its deep and
dark wave. Refreshed by its invigorating coolness he soon swam beyond
the reach of their muskets; but in his weak and wounded state it is
more than probable he would have sunk ere he had crossed half the
breadth had not the firing and the shouts of his enemies proved the
means of saving his life. Fraser of Foyers seeing a numerous band of
armed men standing on the opposite bank of Loch-Ness, and observing
a single swimmer struggling in the water, ordered his boat to be
launched, and pulling hard to the individual, discovered him to be his
friend Allan Dubh, with whose family Fraser was on terms of friendship.
Macranuil, thus rescued, remained at the house of Foyers until he
was cured of his wound. The influence and the Clan of the Macdonells
subsequently declined, while that of the Mackenzies surely and steadily
increased.
The heavy ridge between the vale of Urquhart and Aultsigh, where
Allan Dubh Macranuil so often divided his men, is to this day called
Monadh-an-leumanaich, or ‘the Moor of the Leaper.’
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