The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

328 THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii
the words of Sir Robert Gordon :— " From the ruins of the
family of clan Donald and some of the neighbouring Highlanders,
and also by their own vertue, the surname of the
clan Kenzie, from small beginnings began to flourish in these
bounds, and by the friendship and favour of the house of
Sutherland, chiefly of earl John, fifth of that name, earl of
Sutherland (whose chamberlains they were in receiving the
rents of the earldom of Rosse to his use), their estate afterwards
came to great height, yea, above divers of their more ancient
neighbours." The establishment of the clan at once in so
great power, upon the ruins of the Macdonalds, was much
furthered by the character of the chief of the time, who appears
to have been a person of considerable talent, and well fitted
to seize every occasion of extending their influence.
"
In his
time," says an ancient historian of the clan, " he purchased
much of the Braelands of Ross, and secured both what he
had acquired, and what his predecessors had, by well ordered
and legal security — so that it is doubtful whether his predecessors'
courage, or his prudence, contributed most to the
rising of his family." The endeavours of the Mackenzies
thus to possess themselves of a portion of the now scattered
territories of the Macdonalds, had with them the same result
as with the other clans engaged in pursuit of the same object,
for they soon found themselves involved in bitter feuds with
.several branches of that great but fallen clan.
Proximity of situation, and peculiar circumstances, occasioned
the Glengarry branch of the Macdonalds to become
the causes of this feud, which
their principal antagonists ; and
for some time raged with great fierceness, and at length ended
in the additional aggrandisement of the Mackenzies, and in
the loss of a great part of Glengarry's possessions, are these :
During the period when the earldom of Ross was held by
Alexander, lord of the Isles, that chief bestowed a considerable
extent of territory in Ross upon the second son Celestine.
The descendants of Celestine having become extinct, after the
failure of the various attempts which had been made to regain
the possessions and dignities of the forfeited lord of the Isles,
their estate in Ross descended to Macdonald of Glengarry,
whose grandfather had married the heiress of that branch of