An gaidheal - National Library of Scotland

;846 THE GAEL. January, 1874.THE MACDONALDS AND THEMACKEXZIES.In the Gael for Decemberthere is a uotice of these two clansfounded on an extract of a letter bythe late Hon. Mrs, Stewart Mackenziewherein she states, " theQuarterl// Review says the Mackenzieswere once a dependent clan on theMacdoualds. I can assure yon suchwas never the case." Notwithstandingthis very strong assertion, thestatement of the Quarterly Review isthe true one ; the Mackenzies werethe vassals of the Macdoualds, Lordsof the Isles, they received their landsfr(-im them. The history of theMackenzies was drawn up by Di".George Mackenzie, who being oneof the clan would not say anythingunfavourable to it. He states that inthe yeai- 1463, John, Eai-l of Rossand Lord of the Isles, granted bycharter the lands of Strathgarve andmany other lands, to AlexanderMackenzie, the then head and chiefof the name ; there can be no questionbut that the writer of the histor}'must have seen the charter, so as tobe able to make the statement hedoes, and no donbt it is the oldestauthentic document the Mackenziescan produce. As to the pi-etendedancient claims to the lands of Kintailbeing granted by a charter to theMackenzies so far back as 12G2, ithas been proved to be a forgeiy.We find that the lands of Kintailbelonged to the Earl of Ross, andnot the Mackenzies as he grantedthem by a charter dated at his castleof Urquhart on 4th July 1342, toReginald, son of Roderick de Insulisof the Macdonald family, and thischarter was, as appears in theRecords, confirmed by King DavidII., hi 1344; thus we learn thatalmost a century later than theperiod claimed by the Mackenzies,the lands of Kintail belonged to theEarls of Ross, and the Macdonaldsthe charter will be found in Robertson's" Index of Charters," pages99 and 100. It is A'^ery probablethat in the same year or soon afterthe forfeiture of the Lord of theIsles, which took place in 1493, thatthe Crown made a grant of Kintailto the Mackenzies. The clans whowere vassals to the Earls of Rossand Lords of the Isles, and got theirlauds from them are far more numerousthan is generally known ;priorto the forfeiture, they include theMacLeans, the Camerons, the Mac-Leods, both of Lewis and Harris,the Clan Macneill, also the minorclans of the M'Kinnons, Macfies,Macquarries ; the Mackenzies, ashas been shown, the Munroes, theRosses, the Dingwalls, Urquharts,and the Rosses or Roses of Kilravock.The descent of the chiefsof the Mackenzies has been assertedto be Irish, but this is mere fableand was wholly unknown in 1450,as appears in that invaluable andauthentic chronicle, the KilbrideMS., of the genealogies of the Highlandclans, written in 1450; in it theii'descent is thus given, " the genealogyof the Clan Kenneth, Murdoch,son of Kenneth, son of John, sou ofKenneth, son of Angus, son ofAngus, sou of Christian, son ofAdam, son of Gilleoin-og, son ofGilleoin of the Aird* ; the two lastnames are supposed to be the sameas Colin (called in present GaelicCailewi) and hence so many of theMackenzies called Colin. We findthat this last named " Colin of theAird" is in the same ancient chroniclemade head of the Ross tribe,and then the Mackenzies are identifiedwith them ; and from thenumerous generations given in the* See this genealogy in the ' ' lona ClubTransactions," pages 54, 54,