Part 13

Home's History of the Rebellion, p. 19.

Home, pp. 22, 23.

Jacobite Memoirs.

Glenfinnin is in the shire of Inverness, and the parish of Glenelg. It is situated at the head of Loch Shiel.

Jacobite Memoirs, p. 23.

Introductory Notice, Athol Correspondence, p. ix.

Pennant's Scotland, vol. i. p. 118.

It has lately been proved, beyond doubt, that the parr is a young salmon, not a distinct fish.

Pennant, p. 119.

Jacobite Memoirs, pp. 26, 27.

Henry Benedict, afterwards Cardinal York.

Jacobite Memoirs, p. 31.

See Forbes's Jacobite Memoirs, p. 51.

This casket was never more seen. It was supposed to contain family jewels.

Mrs. Grant's MS. For which I am indebted for the whole of this account.

Mrs. Grant's MS.

Note in Forbes's Jacobite Memoirs, p. 3.

Wood's Peerage.

Athole Correspondence. Introductory Notice.

SIR JOHN MACLEAN.

The name Maclean, abbreviated from Mac Gillean, is derived from the founder of the clan, "Gillean n'a Tuaidh," Gillean of the Battle-axe, so called from his carrying with him as his ordinary weapon, a battle-axe. From this hero are descended the three principal families who compose the clan Maclean, who was also designated Gillean of Duart.

It is related of Gillean that, being one day engaged in a stag-hunt on the mountain of Bein't Sheala, and having wandered away from the rest of his party, the mountain became suddenly enveloped in a deep mist, and that he lost his track. For three days he wandered about; and, at length exhausted, threw himself under the shelter of a cranberry bush, previously fixing the handle of his battle-axe in the earth. He was discovered by his party, who had been vainly endeavouring to find him, insensible on the ground, with his arm round the handle of the battle-axe, whilst the head of the weapon rose above the bush. Hence, probably, the origin of the crest used by the clan Maclean, the battle-axe surrounded by a laurel-branch.

To Gillean of the Battle-axe various origins have been ascribed; truly is it observed, that "there is little wisdom in attempting to thread the mazes of fanciful and traditionary genealogies." Like other families of importance, in feudal times, the Macleans had their seneachie, or historian; and, by the last of these, Dr. John Beaton, the descent, in regular order, from Aonaglius Turmi Teanebrach, a powerful monarch of Ireland, to Fergus the First, of Scotland, is traced.

A tradition had indeed prevailed, that the founder, of the house of Maclean was a son of Fitzgerald, an Earl of Kildare,--a supposition which is contemptuously rejected by the historian of this ancient race. "In fact," he remarks, "from various sources, Gillean can be proved to have been in his grave, long before such a title as Earl of Kildare was known, and nearly two hundred years before the name of Fitzgerald existed." It appears, indeed, undoubted, from ancient records and well-authenticated sources, that the origin of Gillean was derived from the source which has been stated.

When the lordship of the Isles was forfeited, the clan Maclean was divided into four branches, each of which held of the Lords of the Isles; these branches were the Macleans of Duart, the Macleans of Lochbuy, the Macleans of Coll, and the Macleans of Ardgour. Of these, the most important branch was the family of Duart, founded by Lachlan Maclean, surnamed Lubanich. This powerful chief obtained such an ascendant at the court of the Lord of the Isles, as to provoke the enmity of the Chief of Mackinnon, who, on the occasion of a stag-hunt, formed a plot to cut off Lachlan and his brother, Hector Maclean. But the conspiracy was discovered by its objects; Mackinnon suffered death at the hands of the two brothers for his design; and the Lord of the Isles, sailing in his galley towards his Castle of Ardtorinsh in Morven, was captured, and carried to Icolumb-kill, where he was obliged, sitting on the famous black rock of Iona, held sacred in those days, to swear that he would bestow in marriage upon Lachlan Lubanich his daughter Margaret, granddaughter, by her mother's side, of Robert the Second, King of Scotland: and with her, as a dowry, to give to the Lord of Duart, Eriska, with all its isles. The dowry demanded consisted of a towering rock, commanding an extensive view of the islands by which it is surrounded, and occupying a central situation among those tributaries. From the bold and aspiring chief was Sir John Maclean of Duart descended. The marriage of Lachlan Lubanich with Margaret of the Isles took place in the year 1366.

Between the time of Lachlan Lubanich and the birth of Sir John Maclean, the house of Duart encountered various reverses of fortune. It has been shown how the chief added the rock of Eriska to his possessions; in the course of the following century, a great part of the Isles of Mull and Tirey, with detached lands in Isla, Jura, Scarba, and in the districts of Morven, Lochaber, and Knapdale, were included in the estates of the chiefs of Duart, who rose, in the time of James the Sixth, to be among the most powerful of the families of the Hebrides. The principal seats of the chiefs of the Macleans were Duart and Aros Castles in Mull, Castle Gillean in Kerrara, on the coast of Lorn, and Ardtornish Castle in Morven. In 1632, on occasion of the visit of one of the chiefs, Lachlan, to the Court of Charles the First, he was created a Baronet of Nova Scotia, by the title of Sir Lachlan Maclean of Morven. But various circumstances, and more especially the enmity of the Argyle family, and the adherence of Maclean to the Stuarts, had contributed to the decline of their pre-eminence before the young chief, whose destiny it was to make his name known and feared at the court of England, had seen the light.

The family of Maclean in all its numerous and complicated branches, had been distinguished for loyalty and independence during the intervening centuries between the career of Gillean and the birth of that chieftain whose devotion to the Jacobite cause proved eventually the ruin of the house of Duart. Throughout the period of the Great Rebellion, and of the Protectorate, the chief of the Macleans had made immense sacrifices to support the interests of the King, and to bring his clan into the field. In the disgraceful transactions, by which it was agreed that Scotland should withdraw her troops from England upon the payment of four hundred thousand pounds, in full of all demands, the faithful Highland clans of the north and west, the Grahams, Macleans, Camerons, and many others, had no participation. One main actor in that bargain, by which a monarch was bought and sold, was the Marquis of Argyle, the enemy and terror of his Highland neighbours, the Macleans of Duart. Upon the suppression of the royal authority, domestic feuds were ripened into hostilities during the general anarchy; and few of the oppressed and harassed clans suffered more severely, or more permanently than the Macleans of Duart.

Archibald, the first Marquis of Argyle, fixed an indelible stain upon his memory by acts of unbridled licence and aggression, in relation to his Highland neighbours; the unfortunate Macleans of Duart especially experienced the effects of his wrath, and suffered from his manoeuvres.