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Issue 28 - Sons of grace (Clan MacRae)

History & Heritage

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Scotland Magazine Issue 28

Scotland Magazine Issue 28
September 2006

 

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Sons of grace (Clan MacRae)

In this issue, James Irvine Robertson studies the Clan MacRae

Sons of grace (Clan MacRae) (Issue 28)
If you were one of the world’s richest potentates and wanted to buy a Scottish estate, you would, presumably want it to have the requisite number of salmon, grouse, and stags.

You would probably also want your holiday home to be set in the most beautiful part of this most beautiful country. And that is supposedly why, more than a decade ago, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai who is worth, according to Forbes magazine, $12 billion, purchased Inverinate, for the best part of five centuries the ancestral territory of Clan MacRae.

The scenery here is breathtaking, comprising Loch Duich, Kintail with the mountains known as the Five Sisters, and Eilean Donan Castle of which the MacRaes were the hereditary constables for centuries. On the western horizon, you can see the jagged profile of the Cuillins on Skye.

For many clans, their history is that of great men and their struggle for national prominence.

This often glosses over, or tries to gloss over, the inevitable treachery, ruthlessness and brutality as individuals tried to claw their way to the top of the heap. Not the MacRaes. Their story is one of absolute loyalty since their earliest founder.

The MacKenzies were all-powerful in north west Scotland, one of the three or four strongest clans.

Often such power led to the destruction and subjugation of smaller clans, but the MacKenzies had the wisdom to allow room for the MacRaes to survive and prosper in their shadow.

Their reward can be discerned from their nickname, they became the MacKenzie’s Lein chrios – coat of mail. For centuries they provided the most faithful bodyguard to Caber Feigh, as the MacKenzie chief was known, and had the honour of being the pall bearers at MacKenzie funerals.

The MacRaes, meaning ‘the sons of grace,’ is an indigenous Gaelic clan which emerged from the fog of prehistory around the same time as the MacKenzies. Already established in Kintail, they became Clan MacKenzie’s champions and enforcers.

As custodians of Eilean Donan (the Island of St Donnan was named after the saint martyred by Vikings in 617, hence the name of the castle is pronounced ‘Ellen Donnan’) the MacRaes inevitably came into conflict with the MacDonalds of the Isles. The castle on Eilean Donan was therefore primarily built as a defence against Clan Donald’s incursions into mainland MacKenzie territory, but it also dominated the important marine thoroughfare east of Skye.

In 1539, having heard the garrison was undermanned, 50 MacDonald galleys under the leadership of MacDonald of Sleat, sailed into Loch Duich to attack. Only one other defender was still alive when Duncan MacGilchrist MacRae notched his last arrow into Sleat’s foot. On pulling it out, an artery was severed and the Chief died.

On another occasion, MacDonald of Glengarry had raided MacKenzie’s lands of Strath Carron, and was on his way home, his galleys heavily loaded with plunder. Only a few men were left at Eilean Donan, but Lady Kintail, wife of the MacKenzie Chief, sent them out under the intrepid Duncan MacRae.

It was a night in November and the sea was calm, but as MacRae waited under the shadow of the headland of Kylerhea, there were occasional showers of snow. Finally, on the rising of the tide, a boat shot through the narrows. Recognising it as MacDonald’s scout, MacRae allowed it to pass. A great galley next appeared, and, firing a canon he had brought with him, MacRae dashed his vessel against it. Many of its oars were broken, and in a damaged state it ran onto the Cailleach Rock, where its entire crew of 60, with MacDonald himself, were slain or drowned.

Along with their traditional allies, the MacRaes fought for the Scottish government during the Marquis of Montrose’s campaign and suffered heavy casualties.

In 1689, Lord Seaforth, the chief of the MacKenzies, supported Bonny Dundee’s Rising, and Eilean Donan was held by the Jacobites long after Killiecrankie effectively ended the campaign.

In the 1715 Jacobite Rising, the MacRaes were on the left wing of the Earl of Mar’s army at Sheriffmuir and, driven back by repeated charges by the English Dragoons, suffered dreadful casualties.

The Battle of Sheriffmuir is said to have left 58 new widows in Kintail. The clan and the castle were in the eye of the hurricane in the Rising of 1719.

Five thousand Spanish troops were sent by Philip of Spain to Scotland, but just three ships and 300 men under the command of the Earl Marischal made it to Kintail.

Only a thousand Highlanders joined them. After a brief skirmish in Glen Sheil, the Spaniards surrendered and the Highlanders dispersed. Finlay MacRae was the only rebel casualty.

The remaining rebels retired to Eilean Donan which was proven to have had its day when three Royal Navy frigates sailed into Loch Duich and subjected the fortress to a brief cannonade. The garrison realised that they were in a helpless situation and put a match to the powder magazine, destroying the castle to prevent it being taken by the enemy.

When the Earl of Seaforth raised the 78th Seaforth Highlanders in 1778, so many of the regiment were MacRaes that it became known as ‘The MacRaes’. This was changed to ‘The Wild MacRaes’ when they mutinied, justifiably in the eyes of the citizens of Edinburgh, in 1778 and set themselves up in defensive positions on the top of Arthur’s Seat. It took four days for the authorities to concede to their demands and they marched back through Edinburgh, colours flying, with Lord Seaforth at their head.

Ayear or two before this, James Boswell and Dr Johnson paused for a meal at the head of Loch Duich, and Boswell left a delightful description of the occasion: “We sat down on a green turf seat at the end of a house, and they brought us out two wooden dishes of milk, which we tasted... We had a considerable circle about us men, women and children, all McRaes. Not one of them could speak English. I observed to Mr Johnson it was the same as being with a tribe of Indians. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but not so terrifying.’ “I gave all who chose it snuff and tobacco. I also gave each person a bit of wheat-bread, which they had never tasted. I then gave a penny apiece to each child...

There was great diversity in the faces of the circle around us; some were as black and wild in their appearance as any American savages whatever. One woman was as comely almost as the figure of Sappho as we see it painted.” There is currently no chief of the clan. In 1906 the office was contested between the families of Inverinate and Conchra.

The Lord Lyon King of Arms, who adjudicates on such matters, has still to make a decision, but in 1932, Eilean Donan Castle was restored by lieutenant colonel John MacRae- Gilstrap, son of Duncan MacRae of Conchra. It has since become one of Scotland’s most photographed and filmed tourist attractions.

INFORMATION
Slogan: Sgur Uran – is the name of the tallest of the Five Sisters mountain range
Plant Badge: Fir Club-Moss; Garbhag an t-sleibh
Pipe Music: The Macrae’s March
For more information:www.clan-macrae.org.uk