Clan Mackenzie

History

Mackenzie means son of Kenneth, and older writers call the clan simply Clan Kenneth. Its home was Kintail in Wester Ross. For a long time the clan's own histories claimed descent from Colin Fitzgerald, an Irish-Norman adventurer supposedly rewarded with Kintail after the Battle of Largs in 1263. The historians Cosmo Innes and William Skene showed that the charter behind that story was a forgery. A Gaelic genealogy of about 1450 gives a native descent instead, from Gilleoin of the Aird, an ancestor shared with the old Earls of Ross. The Gaelic account is now the one generally preferred, though it cannot be proved in detail either.

A Murdoch, son of Kenneth, is said to have had a charter from David II in 1362. The first chief who appears clearly in the records is Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail, in the 1460s. He is remembered as Alexander the Upright and is said to have died in 1488 at a great age. Around 1491 the clan fought the MacDonalds at Blàr na Pàirce. The clan's war cry, Tulach Àrd, 'the high hill', recalls a gathering place in Kintail where beacon fires were lit.

The next century was one of steady gain. Kenneth Mackenzie was created Lord Mackenzie of Kintail in 1609. Around the same time, after years of trying, the clan gained the Isle of Lewis. In 1623 Colin Mackenzie became Earl of Seaforth, and Brahan Castle was a seat of the Seaforth chiefs. A separate branch of the family later held the earldom of Cromartie.

The Seaforth chiefs were loyal to the Stuarts and paid for it. William, the 5th Earl, came out in 1715 and again in 1719, when the Jacobites were beaten at Glen Shiel. His titles were forfeited. In 1745 the clan was split. Lord Fortrose held to the government, while the 3rd Earl of Cromartie raised men for Prince Charles.

In 1778 the then Earl of Seaforth raised the Seaforth Highlanders, and the Mackenzie tartan we know is that regiment's tartan. The senior line ended in 1815 with the death of Francis Humberston Mackenzie, Lord Seaforth. Tradition ties the end of the line to the Brahan Seer, who is said to have foretold the doom of the Seaforths. The Lord Lyon recognised the Earl of Cromartie as chief in 1980, according to the clan society; some accounts say 1979. The present Earl lives at Castle Leod near Strathpeffer.