But while the more ancient tribal forms had thus undergone a process of change and modification similar to that which characterised the Irish tribe, and left merely its shadow behind it in the geographical district and the function of the Toshachdoracht, it is in the reign of David the First that the sept or clan first appears as a distinct and prominent feature in the social organisation of the Gaelic population, and owing to the light thrown upon the ancient state of the earldom of Buchan as a Celtic Mortuath by the Book of Deer only. During the period of the Mormaers of Buchan prior to Garnait and Colban, who were Mormaers or earls in the reign of David, we find the Toisechs mentioned generally as concurring in grants of land; but in the time of these two Mormaers a grant of land is made by Comgill mac Caennaig, Tosech of Clan Canan; and Colban, Mormaer of Buchan, and Eva, daughter of Garnait his wife, and Donnachach mac Sithig, Toisech of Clan Morgan, mortmained all the previous offerings to God, Drostan, Columcille, and Peter, that is, to the monastery of Deer, and this grant is witnessed, among others, by the two sons of the Toisech. The Toisech of the Tuath had thus by this time acquired a sufficient Deis to form a sept of his kin and dependants, of which he now appears as the head, but the clans in this district only show themselves to disappear at once before the advancing colonisation of the eastern districts by a Teutonic population.

In the same reign we find a Gaelic sept or clan appearing where we might least expect to find it, viz., in the province of Fife and Fothriff, where the Clan Macduff figures from an early period in both the mythic and the real history of Scotland, and has acquired a fictitious importance from the supposed connection of its founders with the usurper Macbeth, from which the privileges known as the law of the Clan Macduff were supposed to be derived. The well-known tale of how Macduff was Thane of Fife in the reign of Macbeth, how he incurred the resentment of the usurper and fled to England from his wrath, how his wife and children were slaughtered, and how he brought back Malcolm, the son of King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain, and how he killed Macbeth in the battle which placed Malcolm on the throne, first appears in the Chronicle of John of Fordun,^[425] but he does not notice the privileges supposed to be conferred upon him and his descendants. These first appear in an addition made to the Chronicle by his interpolator Bower, the abbot of Inchcolm. According to him, after Malcolm was crowned, Macduff, thane of Fife, came to him, and requested and obtained three privileges, in reward for his faithful service, for himself and his successors, lords or thanes of Fife:—First, that they should place the king in his royal seat or chair on his coronation day; second, that they should lead the vanguard in every battle in which the royal standard was unfurled; third, that they, and every one of their kin, on the occasion of any sudden and unpremeditated homicide, should enjoy the privilege of the law of Macduff, the gentry on paying twenty-four marks as kinbot, and the commonalty on paying twelve marks receiving a plenary remission.^[426] Wyntoun gives the same account of the three privileges, but adds—

Sir John Skene, however, attaches the third privilege to the Croce of the Clan Macduff which divides Stratherne from Fife, as a privilege and liberty of girth in such sort that when any manslayer, being within the ninth degree of kin and blood to Macduff, sometime earl of Fife, came to that cross and gave nine cows and a colpindach, or year-old cow, he was free of the slaughter committed by him, and quotes a charter by David the Second to William Ramsay of the earldom of Fife, with the law called Clan Macduff.^[428] The existence of this privilege is so far confirmed that in a Parliament of King Robert the Second, held in 1384, in which certain laws were enacted regarding Katheranes, the earl of Fife agreed that as ‘principal of law of Clan Macduff’ (capitalis legis de Clen m’Duffe), he would cause them to be observed within his bounds;^[429] and in the fragmentary code of laws it is enacted that the duellum, or wager of battle, may be remitted in three instances, the second being ‘by the law of the Clan Macduff for the slaughter of one of the kin, if the kin of the other party can come in the place of combat when the appealer is proven, and his lance.’^[430] We thus see that when the line of the Celtic Earls of Fife, the hereditary Toshachs of the tribe, failed, they were replaced by the Capitalis legis, ‘Capytale of lawch,’ or Toshachdor, the principal being the alien Earl, to whom Wyntoun joins the priest of Wedale, a parsonage belonging to St. Andrews, and the Lord of Abernethy, the descendant of the old abbots of the monastery of that name. Hector Boece pushes the origin of the clan as far back as the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin, the founder of the Scottish dynasty, who, according to that veracious chronicler, appointed governors of the different provinces, that of Fife being a certain Fifus Duffus.

There were of course no thanes of Fife at any time. The first appearance of the name on record is in the reign of David the First, when Gillemichel Macduff witnesses an early charter of that monarch to the monks of Dunfermline, along with five earls, one of whom is Constantine, earl of Fife, and he certainly is the same person who witnesses the foundation charter of Holyrood shortly after as ‘Gillemichel Comes,’ and had thus become earl of Fife.

The demesne of the earls of Fife of this race appears to have consisted of the parishes of Cupar, Kilmany, Reres, and Cameron in Fife, and those of Strathmiglo and Auchtermuchty in Fothriff,^[431] near which Macduff’s Cross was situated, but whether this sept were the remains of the old Celtic inhabitants of the province, or a Gaelic clan introduced into it when its chief was made earl, it is difficult to say, but it is not impossible that it may have been a northern clan who followed Macbeth when the southern districts were subjected to his rule, and that there may be some foundation for the legend that the founder of the clan had rebelled against him, and adopted the cause of Malcolm Ceannmor, and so maintained his position. The fact that the race from whom the Mormaers of Moray derived their origin is termed in one of the Irish Genealogical MSS. Clan Duff, and the earls of Fife undoubtedly possessed from an early period large possessions in the north, including the district of Strathavon,^[432] lends some probability to this supposition. The privileges of the clan, however, stand on a different footing. From the earliest period the territory of Fife comes prominently forward as the leading province of Scotland, and its earls occupied the first place among the seven earls of Scotland. The first two privileges of placing the king on the Coronation Stone, and of heading the van in the army, were probably attached to the province of Fife, and not to any particular tribe from which its earls might have been derived, while on the other hand the third seems derived from the institution connected with the ancient Finé, by which the kin formed a class of seventeen persons, consisting of the Geilfiné, Deirbhfiné, Indfiné, and Iarfiné, and the nine degrees of kindred of the Clan Macduff correspond to the first two, which consisted of nine persons, traces of which can also be found in the Welsh Laws.

Whilst the sept or clan thus makes its appearance in these few instances beyond the Highland Line, it no doubt had already assumed an equally distinct form within that boundary; but whatever may have been the condition of the clans in the more inaccessible region of the Highlands, history throws little light upon their existence till they emerge beyond it towards the end of the fourteenth century.

Fordun, who concludes his Chronicle immediately before the first appearance of a Highland clan beyond the Highland Line, gives the following description of the inhabitants of the Highlands:—‘The Highlanders and people of the Islands are,’ he says, ‘a savage and untamed nation, rude and independent, given to rapine, ease-loving, of a docile and warm disposition, comely in person but unsightly in dress, hostile to the Anglic people and language, and, owing to diversity of speech, even to their own nation, and exceedingly cruel. They are, however, faithful and obedient to their king and country, and easily made to submit to law, if properly governed.’^[433] This is a picture drawn by one who had no friendly feeling towards them, but the good qualities with which he credits them, of being of a docile and warm disposition, and faithful and obedient to their king and country, read as strangely to us when their subsequent history is taken into account, as Fordun’s opinion that the dress is unsightly hardly corresponds with modern taste. At the time he wrote, however, he was warranted in what he said, for from the time when Alexander the Second finally suppressed the rebellion of the people of Moray, and conquered Argyll in the early part of his reign, to his own day, they had not broken out beyond their mountain barrier, and these early rebellions arose from their adherence to a family which they believed had a rightful claim to the throne, just as those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the result of their attachment to the cause of the Stewarts.

This state of quiescence was not destined, however, to continue long, and within eight years after the death of the chronicler the irruptions of the Highlanders into the low country were renewed, and they now appear in the form of separate septs or clans. Robert the Second had, in the first year of his reign, granted the lands of Badenoch, which had been forfeited by the Cumyns, to his fourth son, Alexander, who, from his fierce disposition, became known as the Wolf of Badenoch, and some years after he obtained grants of the lands of Strathavon, which had belonged to the earls of Fife, and of Abernethy in Strathtay. Alexander had no family by his wife Eupham, countess of Ross, but a number of illegitimate sons; and Bower tells us that in 1391 the Caterans, as he calls them, invaded the Braes of Angus with Duncan Stewart, one of his sons, at their head, and were encountered by Walter Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, with such of the barons of Angus and their followers as he could hastily summon, at a place called by him Glenbrereth, where the sheriff was slain with sixty of his followers.^[434] Wyntoun gives a very graphic account of this raid, which he places in the subsequent year, when he says, ‘There arose a great discord between Sir David of Lindsay, son of Glenesk, and the Highlandmen, and that in consequence of the former sending a secret spy into the Highlands, a great company of Highlandmen, to the number of three hundred and more, came suddenly into Angus under three chieftains, Thomas, Patrick, and Gibbon, whose surname was Duncanson, and encountered the sheriff at Gasklune, in the Stormont, where the latter was slain.’^[435] It is unnecessary to enter into the particulars of the conflict, striking though the details are, but we have more certain information as to the leaders of the Highlanders in a Brief issued by King Robert the Third at a general council held at Perth on the 26th March 1392, and addressed to the sheriff and bailiffs of Aberdeen, directing them to put to the horn as outlaws the following persons, guilty of the slaughter of Walter de Ogilvy, Walter de Lichton, and others of the king’s lieges:—viz., Duncan and Robert Stewarts, Patrick and Thomas Duncansons, Robert de Athale, Andrew Macnayr, Duncan Bryceson, Angus Macnayr, and John Ayson junior, and all others their adherents; and as taking part with them in the slaughter, Slurach and his brothers, with the whole Clanqwhevil, William Mowat, John de Cowts, Donald de Cowts, with their adherents; David de Rose, Alexander M‘Kintalyhur, John M‘Kintalyhur, Adam Rolson, John Rolson, with their adherents; Duncan Neteraulde, John Mathyson, with their adherents; Morgownde Ruryson and Michael Mathowson, with their adherents.^[436] They thus formed six groups. The first group who were directly implicated, with the exception of the Stewarts, belong to Athole; the Duncansons, with Robert de Athale, were the heads of the Clan Donnachie, descended from the old earls who possessed the north-western district bordering upon that of Badenoch; the Macnairs possessed Foss in Strathtummel, and the Aysons, Tullimet in Strathtay. The other five were art and part. The first were Slurach and his brothers, who with their followers formed a clan termed the Clanqwhevil. This is the first appearance of a distinct clan in the Highlands. The second group of the Mowats and CowtsCowts belonged to Buchan, of which Alexander Stewart was earl; and the third of David de Rose and his followers, must have come from Strathnairn, where the Roses were situated. These groups were, therefore, probably dependants of the Wolf of Badenoch, and the cause of this raid seems to have arisen from this, that Sir David de Lindsay had inherited Glenesk in Angus and the district of Strathnairn from his mother, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir John Stirling of Glenesk, while another of the daughters had married Robert de Atholia. His possession of Strathnairn would bring him into contact with the Wolf of Badenoch and the northern clans, and a quarrel regarding the succession probably brought the Clan Donnachie into the field.

The Wolf of Badenoch died in 1394, and two years after, the only Highland clan hitherto mentioned with that designation, came more prominently into the foreground in the very remarkable combat which took place on the North Inch of Perth in the year 1396, and from its peculiarity seems to have attracted general notice, as well as given rise to a controversy with regard to the actors in it, for which it is difficult to provide any satisfactory solution.

The account given by the chroniclers of this remarkable combat differs somewhat as to the details. The earliest account of it is probably that given by Wyntoun, who wrote his Chronicle between 1420 and 1424, or only about twenty-five years after the event. He says that the combat took place at Saint Johnstoun or Perth between sixty men, thirty against thirty, who belonged to two clans who had been at variance in old feud in which their fore elders were slain. He names the clans Clahynnhe (or Clan) Qwhewyl, and Clachiny (or Clan) Ha, and that their chieftains were Scha Ferqwhareisone and Christy Johnesone; that they fought within barriers with bow and axe, knife and sword; but that who had the best of it he could not say, and that fifty or more were slain, and but few escaped with life.^[437]

Bower, who wrote nearly twenty-five years later, gives further details. He says that a great part of the north beyond the Grampians had been disturbed by two turbulent caterans and their followers:—Scheabeg and his kin, who were called Clan Kay, and Cristi Johnson, and his, called Clanquhele, who could by no treaty or arrangement be brought to peace, nor could they be brought under subjection to the government, upon which David de Lyndesay of Crawford, and Thomas earl of Moray, interposed and treated between them, so that they agreed to settle their quarrel before the king at Perth, by a combat between thirty chosen men of their kin on each side, armed only with their swords, bows and arrows, and without their plaids or other arms. The combat took place on the North Inch of Perth, in presence of the king, the governor, and a great multitude, on the Monday before Saint Michael’s day, when, of the sixty, all were slain except one on the part of the Clan Kay and eleven on the other part. He adds that as they were entering within the barrier, one of the number dashed into the river and escaped by swimming across, on which one of the spectators offered to supply his place for half a mark, on condition that if he survived he was to be maintained during the rest of his life, which was agreed to. The result was that the north was for many years after at peace, and there was no further outbreak of the caterans.^[438] The material difference between Bower’s account and Wyntoun’s is, that he reverses the connection of the chiefs with the clans, and adds the detail of the numbers slain on both sides, and the aid of the volunteer.

The next account is given by Maurice Buchanan, in the Book of Pluscarden, who wrote in 1461, and differs very much from that of Bower. He connects this event with the raid into Angus five years previously, and implies that the same parties were concerned in both, but he does not name the clans. This was so far the case, that the Clan Qwhele took part in both. He says that in 1391 so great a contention had arisen among the wild Scots (silvestres Scottos), that their whole country was disturbed by it, and, on that account, the king finding himself unable to restore peace, arranged, in a council of the magnates of the kingdom, that their two principal captains, with their best and most valiant friends, amounting on each side to thirty men, should fight in an enclosed field after the manner of judicial combatants (more duellancium),^[439] with swords only, cross bows having each three arrows only, and this before the king on a certain day on the North Inch of Perth; and this, by the intervention of the earl of Crawford and other nobles, was agreed upon and carried out, when all on both sides were slain except seven, five on the one side and two on the other escaping alive, of which two one escaped by flying to the river and escaping across it, and the other being taken was pardoned with the consent of the other party, though some say that he was hung. In the beginning of the conflict one of the number of one party disappeared and could not be found, on which one of the spectators, who happened to belong to the same clan (parentela) and was hostile to the other party, agreed to supply his place for forty shillings, fought most valiantly, and escaped with his life.^[440] As the writer of this account was himself a Highlander, this is most probably the account given of the combat on the Highland side, while that of Bower was the account reported in the Lowlands; and the former has more appearance of being the correct account, and agrees better with that of Wyntoun, who could not tell which party gained. It also indicates that the conflict was of the nature of a judicial wager of battle, which is also probably the true view; for if the contention between the clans was a mere ordinary feud, it is difficult to see how this combat should have been the means of restoring peace, but if the dispute related to some difference as to some question of right or privilege which both claimed, it is quite intelligible that it should have been settled by judicial combat before the king.

The only other early notice of this event is in a short chronicle contained in the Chartulary of Moray, which states that the combat took place on the 28th day of September at Perth before the king and the nobles of Scotland, because he found it impossible to establish peace between two clans (parentelas) called the Clan Kay and the Clan Qwhwle, whence there were daily slaughtering attacks committed by them. Thirty men on each side without armour, but with bows, swords, and dirks, met in conflict, when all on the side of the Clan Kay were slain except one, and of the other party ten survived.^[441]

If this event was connected with the raid of Angus which preceded it, the events which followed may likewise tend to throw light upon the actors in this strange combat. When the royal forces attacked Alexander, Lord of the Isles, in 1429, and put him to flight in Lochaber, the chroniclers tell us, that at the sight of the royal standard, he was deserted by two tribes, who submitted to the royal authority. They are termed by Bower the Clan Katan and Clan Cameron, and by Maurice Buchanan, more correctly, the Clan de Guyllequhatan and Clan Cameron. This was on the eve of St. John the Baptist’s day, that is, on the 23d of June, and on the following Palm Sunday, which is on the 20th day of the following month of March, we are told by the chroniclers that the Clan Chattan attacked the Clan Cameron when assembled in a certain church, to which they set fire and destroyed nearly the whole clan. Although the Clan Chattan are here said, in general terms, to have deserted the Lord of the Isles, it appears that a part of the clan still adhered to his cause, for after his restoration to liberty, we find him in 1443 granting a charter to Malcolm MacIntosh of the forty merk lands of Keppoch and others in the lordship of Lochaber, and in 1447 he confers upon him the office of bailie or steward of the lordship of Lochaber.^[442] This Malcolm, who is called in the second charter his cousin, was related to the Lord of the Isles through his mother, who was a daughter of his grandfather Angus, Lord of the Isles, and was thus probably led to adhere to him. The same lands are confirmed to his son Duncan MacIntosh in 1466, by John, Lord of the Isles,^[443] and in this charter he is termed Captain of Clan Chattan, which is the first appearance of this designation.

Neither were the Clan Cameron entirely destroyed, for we find Alan, son of Donald Duff, appearing in 1472 as Captain of the Clan Cameron, and in 1492, Alexander of the Isles, Lord of Lochalsh and Lochiel, grants the lands of Lochiel to Ewen, son of Alan, son of Donald, Captain of Clan Cameron. It would thus appear that a part only of these two clans had deserted the Lord of the Isles in 1429, and a part adhered to him, that the conflict on Palm Sunday was between the former part of these clans, and that the leaders of those who adhered to the Lord of the Isles became afterwards recognised as captains of the respective clans. It further appears that there was, within no distant time after the conflict on the North Inch of Perth, a bitter feud between the two clans who had deserted the Lord of the Isles, and there are indications that this was merely the renewal of an older quarrel, for both clans undoubtedly contested the right to the lands of Glenlui and Locharkaig in Lochaber, to which William MacIntosh received a charter from the Lord of the Isles in 1336, while they unquestionably afterwards formed a part of the territory possessed by the Camerons.

By the later historians one of the clans who fought on the North Inch of Perth, and who were termed by the earlier chroniclers Clan Qwhele, are identified with the Clan Chattan,^[444] and that this identification is well founded, so far as regards that part of the clan which adhered to the royal cause, while that in the part of the Clan Cameron who followed the same course, and were nearly entirely destroyed on Palm Sunday, we may recognise their opponents the Clan Kay, is not without much probability.

The Clan Chattan in later times consisted of sixteen septs, who followed MacIntosh as captain of the clan, but did not recognise him as one of the race, and regarded MacPherson of Cluny, head of the sept called Clan Vuireach, as the male representative of the founder of the clan. The first of the MacIntoshes who appears with the title of Captain of Clan Chattan is Duncan MacIntosh, the son of Malcolm, in 1400 and in 1466, and he was probably placed by the Lord of the Isles over that part of the clan who adhered to him. Eight of the septs forming the later Clan Chattan may be put aside as having been affiliated to the clan subsequently to the year 1429, as well as the family of MacIntosh, descended from Malcolm. The remainder represent the clan as it existed before that date. It consisted of an older sept of MacIntoshes, who possessed lands in Badenoch, the principal of which was Rothiemurchus, and appears to have claimed those of Glenlui and Locharkaig in Lochaber. The eight septs who then formed the Clan Chattan proper were the Clan Vuirich or MacPhersons, and the Clan Day or Davidsons, who were called the old Clan Chattan, and six stranger septs, who took protection from the clan. These were the Clan Vic Ghillevray or MacGillivrays, the Clan Vean or MacBeans, the Clan Vic Govies, the Clan Tarrel, the Clan Cheanduy, and the Sliochd Gowchruim or Smiths. The Clan Vic Govies, however, were a branch of the Clan Cameron, and the Sliochd Gowchruim were believed to be descendants of the person who supplied the place of the missing member of the clan at the combat on the North Inch of Perth, and who was said to have been a smith.

The Clan Cameron, on the other hand, consisted of four septs. These were the Clan Gillanfhaigh or Gillonie, or Camerons of Invermalie and Strone, the Clan Soirlie, or Camerons of Glenevis, the Clan Vic Mhartain, or MacMartins of Letterfinlay, and the Camerons of Lochiel. The latter were the sept whose head became Captain of Clan Cameron and adhered to the Lord of the Isles, while the three former represented the part of the clan who seceded from him in 1429. Besides these there were dependent septs, the chief of which were the Clan Vic Gilveil or M‘Millans, and these were believed to be of the race of Clan Chattan. The connection between the two clans is thus apparent. Now there are preserved genealogies of both clans in their earlier forms, written not long after the year 1429. One is termed the ‘Genealogy of the Clan an Toisig, that is, the Clan Gillachattan,’ and gives it in two separate lines. The first represented the older MacIntoshes. The second is deduced from Gillachattan Mor, the eponymus of the clan. His great-grandson Muireach, from whom the Clan Vuireach takes its name, has a son Domnall or Donald, called in Caimgilla, and this word when aspirated would form the name Kevil or Quhevil.^[445] The chief seat of this branch of the clan can also be ascertained, for Alexander, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, confirms a charter granted by William, earl of Ross, in 1338 of the lands of Dalnafert and Kinrorayth or Kinrara, under reservation of one acre of ground near the Stychan of the town of Dalnavert, where was situated the manor of the late Scayth, son of Ferchard,^[446] and we find a ‘Tsead, son of Ferquhar’ in the Genealogy at the same period. Moreover the grandson of this Scayth was Disiab or Shaw, who thus was contemporary with the Shaw who fought in 1396. The gravestone said to mark the grave of Shaw Corshiacloch, or buck-toothed, whom tradition declares to be the Shaw who led the clan at the combat, was, according to Shaw, still to be seen in the adjacent church of Rothiemurchus. He is also said to have married the daughter of Kenneth Macvuireach, ancestor of the Macpherson of Cluny, and in him and his father-in-law we may probably recognise the ‘Kenethus Mor with his son-in-law, leader of two thousand men,’ who were arrested by James the First at his Parliament at Inverness in 1427.^[447] With regard to the Clan Cameron, the invariable tradition is that the head of the MacGillonies or MacGillaanaigh led the clan who fought with the Clan Chattan during the long feud between them, and the old Genealogy terms the Cameron’s Clan Maelanfhaigh, or the race of the servant of the prophet, and deduces them from a common ancestor the Clan Maelanfhaigh and the Clan Camshron, and as the epithet an Caimgilla, when aspirated, would become Kevil, so the word Fhaigh in its aspirated form would be represented by the Hay of the chroniclers.^[448]

John Major probably gives the clew to the whole transaction, when he tells us that ‘these two clans’—the Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron, which we have seen had a certain connection through their dependent septs, ‘were of one blood, having but little in lordships, but following one head of their race as principal with their kinsmen and dependants.’^[449] He is apparently describing their position before these dissensions broke out between them, and his description refers us back to the period when the two clans formed one tribe, possessing the district of Lochaber as their Tuath or country, where the lands in dispute—Glenlui and Locharkaig—were probably the official demesne of the old Toisech or head of the tribe.

The clans are here described as consisting of two divisions: The one of the Kinsmen, or those of the blood of the sept; the other of the dependants or subordinate septs, who might be of different race. The former clan are well defined in the Gartmore MS., written in the year 1747. The writer says that ‘the property of these Highlands belongs to a great many different persons, who are more or less considerable in proportion to the extent of their estates, and to the command of men that live upon them, or follow them, on account of this clanship, out of the estates of others. These lands are set by the landlord during pleasure, or a short tack, to people whom they call goodmen (Duine Uasail), and who are of a superior station to the commonalty. These are generally the sons, brothers, cousins, or nearest relations of the landlord (or chief). This, by means of a small portion, and the liberality of their relations, they are able to stock, and which they, their children and grandchildren, possess at an easy rent, till a nearer descendant be again preferred to it. As the propinquity removes, they become less considered, till at last they degenerate to be of the common people, unless some accidental acquisition of wealth supports them above their station. As this hath been an ancient custom, most of the farmers and cottars are of the name and clan of the proprietor.’ This exactly describes the Irish Finé in its restricted sense, where the immediate kin of the Ceannfiné or chief consists of seventeen persons, forming the Duthach Finé, from whence they pass by degrees into the Duthaign Daine or commonalty of the Finé or sept.

The dependent septs, on the other hand, represent the Fuidhir of the Irish tribal system. Their position will be best understood by the Bonds of Manrent or Manred, which came to be taken by the chiefs from their dependants when the relation constituted by usage and traditional custom was relaxed by time, or when a new relationship was constituted at a later period. Thus in a bond by a sept of M‘Gillikeyr to John Campbell of Glenurchy, in 1547, he declares that they have chosen him of their own free motive to their chief to be their protector in all great actions, as a chief does in the countries of the Highlands, and shall have lands of him in assedation; and when any of them deceases shall leave to him and his heirs ‘ane cawlpe of kenkynie,’ as is used in the countries about. Again, in a bond by Duncan M‘Olcallum and others of the Clan Teir to Colyne Campbell of Glenurchay in 1556, they state that in consequence of the slaughter of Johne M‘Gillenlay, foster-brother of Sir Colyne Campbell of Glenurchay, their predecessor, for sythment and recompence of said slaughter, had delivered to him one of the principal committers of it called John Roy M‘Ynteir, to be punished at his will; and moreover had elected and taken him and his heirs for their chiefs and masters, and given to him their calps, which calps the said Colyne, Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchay, his son that deceased at Flodden (1513), and all other lairds of Glenurchay had since taken up; and the said Clan Teir of new ratify the bond in favour of Colyne, now of Glenurchay. Again, we find in 1559 Archibald, earl of Argyll, transferring to his cousin Colyne Campbell of Glenurchay and his heirs-male the manrent, homage, and service which his predecessors and he had and has of the ‘haill kyn and surname of the Clanlaurane and their posteritie,’ together with the uptaking of their calps, providing the said Colyne obtain their consent thereto.^[450]

It is unnecessary to quote more of these bonds, which are usually in the same terms; and we may conclude with the following taken from ‘ane list of the native-men of Craignish.’ In 1592 Malcolme Moir Makesaig and his sons appeared at Barrichbyan, and gave to their well-beloved Ronald Campbell McEan VcDonald of Barrichbyan and his heirs their bond of manred and calpis for ever, and shall follow and obey him and his heirs in whatever place he and his foresaids transport themselves in the country or without; and shall obey them as native-men ought and should do to their chief; and Ronald obliges himself and his heirs to be a good chief and master to them as his native-men, and to give to them their duty that they and their succession of men and women ought to have after calpis, conform to the use of the country. In 1595 similar agreements were made by other small septs, and in a bond of manrent granted by Gillicallum McDonchie VcIntyre VcCoshen to Ranald Campbell of Barrechebyan in 1612, in which he states, ‘Forasmuch as I understand of gude memorie that the surname of Clanntyre VcCoshen wer of auld native-men, servandis and dependaris to the house and surename of Clandule Cregnis, alias Campbellis in Cregnis, and willing of my dewtie to renew the band and service of my sadis forbearis war of auld, and dewtie to the sadis house and surename, and acknowledging Rannald Campbell of Barrichbyan to be of the samin house and surname,’ he becomes bound, for himself and all others descended of his body, ‘to be leill, trew, and of auld, native-men in all lawlieness and subjection to the said Rannald and his airis-male for ever, and that according as my predecessors were in use of befoir, and as ony native-men are in use in Argyll, in special sall serve be sea and land the said Rannald, etc.; and in token to uplift from me at my decease the second but aucht that I sall have at the time foresaid in name of calp, to wit, ane hors, meir, or mart;’ and ‘providing alwayis the said Rannald and his airis do the dewtie of ane chief or maister to me and my airis male and female, as use is; attour I grant me, as use is, to haif gotten at the making heirof ane guid and sufficient sword, ressavit and deliverit be the said Rannald to remane as ane memoriall taikin of this my band of manrent.’^[451]

Another feature in the relation between the chief and his kinsmen with their dependent septs was the custom of fosterage which prevailed among the Highland clans as it characterised the Irish tribes. The written contracts of fosterage, which, like the bonds of manrent, superseded the unwritten usage during the transition period when the older Celtic law was losing its influence, and when it became necessary for the chiefs to secure their ancient privileges from passing away under the pressure of other influences, will afford us the best means of ascertaining the true nature of this custom. We may refer to the terms of a few of those which have been preserved. In 1510 we have an obligation by Johne M‘Neill Vreik in Stronferna, and Gregoure his brother, to receive Coleyne Campbell, lawful third son to Coleyne Campbell, the eldest son and heir of Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurquhay, knight, in fostering, and to give him a bairn’s part of gear; and giving to the said Sir Duncan and his heirs their bonds of Manrent and Calps, that is, the best aucht in their houses the times of their decease; the said Sir Duncan and Coleyne his son being bound to defend the said John and Gregour in the lands of Stronferna, and the rest of the rowmis they possess, as law will.^[452] Again, in 1580, there is a contract between Duncane Campbell, fiar of Glenurquhay, and his native servant Gillecreist Makdonchy Duff V^cNokerd and Katherine Neyn Douill Vekconchy his spouse, in which the latter bind themselves to take in fostering Duncane Campbell, son to the said Duncane, to be sustained by them in meat, drink, and nourishment till he be sent to the schools with the advice of friends, and to sustain him at the schools with reasonable support, the said father and foster-father giving between them of Makhelve goods in donation to the said bairn at Beltane thereafter, the value of two hundred merks of ky and two horses or two mares worth forty merks; these goods, with their increase, to pertain to the said bairn as his own chance bears him to, but their milk to pertain to the said foster-father and mother so long as they sustain the said bairn, and until he be sent to the schools, except so much of the milk as will pay the mails of pasture-lands for the said cattle, which the said foster-father is bound to find for them upon Lochaw, and until such be got he finding for them the half of the lands of Auchakynnay, etc.^[453]

The next contract in date, which we shall quote, takes us to the Western Isles. It is a contract in 1612, by which Sir Roderick Macleod of Dunvegan gives his son Norman to John, son of the son of Kenneth, to foster; and it is a very remarkable document, for it is written in Gaelic in the Irish character of the time. The conditions are, that if John dies first the child is to remain with the widow, but the guardianship with John’s brother Angus, who is to have the entire charge of the child if the widow marries again; and Sir Roderick is to have a son’s share of the stock (the bairn’s part of the other contracts) during the life of himself and his heir and the foster-child, along with John’s heirs. The stock (Sealbh) which is to be put into possession of the foster-child is four mares given by the foster-father, and other four mares by the father Sir Roderick, along with three which he promised him when he took him to his bosom. The charge and keeping of the seven mares given by the father to be with the foster-father, in order to put them to increase for his foster-son; and the care and keeping of the four mares given by the foster-father to be with the father, to put them to increase for him in like manner. Among the witnesses to this contract are the ministers of Duirinish and Bracadale.^[454] The last we shall notice is as late as the year 1665, and is a contract betwixt George Campbell of Airds in Argyllshire and Donald Dow M‘Ewin in Ardmastill and Roiss N’Odochardie his wife, by which George Campbell gives in fostering to Donald Dow and his wife, Isobell Campbell, his lawful daughter, for the space of seven years from next Beltane, and gives to her as M‘Heliff (Shealbh) two new-calved kyne with a calf and a year-old stirk, a two-year-old quey at Beltane next, and another two-year-old quey at Beltane 1667; and Donald Dow and his spouse give to their foster-child two farrow kyne, with a stirk and a two-year-old quey at Beltane, and another two-year-old quey at Beltane 1667. The whole of their cattle with their increase to be in the custody of the foster-father and mother during these seven years, the milk to belong to the foster-father and the increase of the cattle to the foster-child; but the father is to grass the yeald kyne yearly, if the foster-father have not sufficient pasturage for them. In addition to this, the foster-father and his spouse give the foster-child a bairn’s part and portion of their whole goods and gear which shall belong to them at their decease, as if she was their own lawful child.^[455]

While the clan, viewed as a single community, thus consisted of the chief, with his kinsmen to a certain limited degree of relationship; the commonalty who were of the same blood, who all bore the same name, and his dependants, consisting of subordinate septs of native-men, who did not claim to be of the blood of the chief, but were either probably descended from the more ancient occupiers of the soil, or were broken men from other clans, who had taken protection from him, the influence of the acquisition of the right of property in land, which had originally developed the septs out of the tribe, likewise tended to make smaller septs within the clan. Those kinsmen of the chief who acquired the property of their land founded families, in which the land became hereditary, and which thus became the centres of a new organisation within the clan. The most influential of these was that of the oldest cadet in the family which had been longest separated from the main stem, and usually presented the appearance of a rival house little less powerful than that of the chief. There is perhaps no better description of the form which the clan ultimately assumed, and of the spirit which animated its members, than that given by an acute observer in the early part of last century.^[456] ‘The Highlanders,’ he says, ‘are divided into tribes or clans, under chiefs or chieftains, as they are called in the laws of Scotland; and each clan again divided into branches from the main stock, who have chieftains over them. These are subdivided into smaller branches of fifty or sixty men, who deduce their original from their particular chieftains, and rely upon them as their more immediate protectors and defenders. The ordinary Highlanders esteem it the most sublime degree of virtue to love their chief and pay him a blind obedience, although it be in opposition to the government, the laws of the kingdom, or even to the law of God. Next to this love of their chief is that of the particular branch from whence they sprang, and, in a third degree, to those of the whole clan or name, whom they will assist, right or wrong, against those of any other tribe with which they are at variance. They likewise owe goodwill to such clans as they esteem to be their particular well-wishers; and, lastly, they have an adherence one to another as Highlanders in opposition to the people of the Low Country, whom they despise as inferior to them in courage, and believe they have a right to plunder them whenever it is in their power. This last arises from a tradition that the Lowlands, in old times, were the possession of their ancestors. The chief exercises an arbitrary authority over his vassals, determines all differences and disputes that happen among them, and levies taxes upon extraordinary occasions, such as the marriage of a daughter, building a house, or some pretence for his support and the honour of the name. This power of the chiefs is not supported by interest as they are landlords, but as lineally descended from the old patriarchs or fathers of the families.’