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73
THE CLAN OF MACRAE.
Clan Pipe Music: Gathering "Blar na Pairc" ("Battle of Park"). March
"Spaidsearachd Chlann Mhic Rath" (" MacRae's March").
Badge : Garbhag an t-sleibhe (Club Moss).
HE natives of the parish of Kintail, says the author of the " Old Statistical Account,"
writing in 1798, "are all MacRaes, except two or three families."
When the MacRaes first entered Kintail, there were several clans inhabiting the
district, particularly the MacAulays, of whom no vestige now remains.
A William Rae, or MacRae, was Bishop of Glasgow in 1335.
In the second line at the battle of Killiecrankie were the MacKenzies of Seaforth,
with the MacRaes from Kintail. On this day the latter were led by Duncan Mor of
Torluish. Under him the MacRaes were said to have made a desperate resistance,
and to have died almost to a man. Ere he fell, he was frequently seen to brandish
his claymore on high, and heard to shout, "Cobhair! cobhair ! an ainm Dhia's an
Righ Sheumais.'" ("Relief! Relief! in the name of God and King James!"). A
recent writer in the "Inverness Courier" states that ere Duncan was slain he slew
fifteen with his own hand, which was so swollen in his claymore hilt that it was extricated with
difficulty.
In 1778 Edinburgh was startled by what was known as the " Affair of the Wild MacRaes," some
hundreds of whom had enrolled in the Seaforth Regiment of Highlanders, formed in 1778 by
Kenneth, the Earl of that title, and which mutinied at Edinburgh on hearing that they had been
sold to the East India Company. In military order, after one wing had fired on another at Leith
Links, the main body marched to Arthur Seat, where they threw up trenches, which are visible to
this day under the cone of the hill near the loch of Dunsappie, and defied all attempts to reduce
them, even though the llth Light Dragoons, 200 of the Buccleuch Fencibles, and 400 of the Glasgow
regiment environed their position.
General Skene, Lord MacDonald, and others proved to the men that their complaints were
groundless, and the affair, which promised to have a serious termination, was satisfactorily arranged
by the Duke of Buccleuch. The regiment then marched with
pipes playing to Holyrood, and on the
27th September embarked for Guernsey, from whence it soon after sailed for India on what proved
a fatal voyage to the MacKenzies and MacRaes, for ere St. Helena was in sight Lord Seaforth died,
and then a great grief, with the mal du pays, fell upon his clansmen so of the thousand who sailed
;
from the British Isles, 230 perished at sea, and only 890 were able to carry arms when, in April 1782,
they began the long, hot, and toilsome march to Chingleput.
There were several bards of old in Kintail. One of the last of these, John MacRae, otherwise
MacCurchi, emigrated to America before the close of the last century, where he met with many
misfortunes.
At the first siege of Bhnrtpore in 1805, one of the clan, Colonel MacRae, led the stormers under
a fire so dreadful that of them alone no less than 591 fell.