The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

314 THE HIGHLANDERS [p.-VRT ii
hill-country of Ross. These clans, consisting principally of the
Macivers, Macaula}'s, and Maclays, had risen against the earl of
Ross, and taken his second son at Balnagowan. In his attempt
to put down this insurrection, the earl of Ross was promptly
assisted by the Monros and the Dingwalls, who pursued the
Highlanders, and fought them at a place called Beallynebroig.
The three clans who had broken out into rebellion were nearly
of the
extinguished, and it is said that a hundred and forty
Dingwalls and eleven of the house of Fowlis, who were to
succeed each other, were killed, and that accordingly the
succession fell to an infant. The Monros, however, appear to
have soon recovered from this slaughter, and to have again
attained to the station they had formerly possessed.
The first feudal titles obtained by this family to their possessions
were acquired about the middle of the fourteenth
centur)', and all proceeded from the earl of Ross as their feudal
superior. The reddendo of one of these charters is of a somewhat
singular nature considering the times, Monro holding the
lands of Pitlundie blench of the earl of Ross, for payment of a
pair of ivhite gloves, or three pounds Scots, if required,
alternately. In another charter, however, granted by the same
earl, of the lands of Easter Fowlis, to Robert Monro of Fowlis,
it is expressly said, that these lands had belonged to his prede-
cessors ever since the time of Donald, the first of this family.
From this period, the Monros appear to have remained in
possession of the same territories, without either acquiring
additions to them, or suffering diminution ; and to have at all
times held the same station in which they were first found
among the other Highland clans.
In the sixteenth century they seem to have been considered
as a clan of considerable importance, for when so many of the
Highlanders assembled round Queen Mary at Inverness, in
1562, Buchannan says, "Audito principis periculo magna
priscorum Scotorum multitude partim excita partim sua sponte
affecit, imprimis Fraserii ct Moiiivi hominum fortissimorum in
illis gentibus familiar."
But when the civil wars of the seventeenth century broke
out, and the Highlanders took such an active part on the side of
the royal cause, the Monros were one of the few clans of Gaelic