It is thus obvious how artificial the earlier links of these genealogies are, and that none of them can in fact be pushed further back than the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin, the oldest link in many of them being contemporary with him, while others fall short of that period. Between the oldest link of those which reach that date and the Dalriadic king of the race of Lorn with which they are connected there is a complete blank, and it is thus plain that the same process of manipulation and artificial construction had taken place with these pedigrees, which had perverted the genealogy of the kings of the line of Kenneth MacAlpin. In the latter case an entire century, with all its events, from 740 to 840, had been suppressed, and Kenneth, the founder of the new dynasty in the ninth century, directly connected with the last of the old kings of Dalriada, of the race of Gabhran, who lived a century earlier. In like manner the genealogies of the clans which reach only to the ninth century, were directly connected with the last of the Dalriadic kings of the line of Lorn, who died in 697. It is not without some significance too that we find such Pictish forms as Neachtain, Fingaine, Morgainn, etc., occurring in the early part of these pedigrees. They may then be regarded as trustworthy only in so far as they show the links of the descent of each clan from its eponymus as believed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the grouping of certain clans together where a common ancestor within the historic period is assigned to them.

During the sixteenth century the clans were brought into direct contact with the Crown, and in the latter part of it serious efforts were made by the Legislature to establish an efficient control over them. These gave rise to the Acts of 1587 and 1594, already referred to; but they were followed in a few years by an important Statute, which had a powerful effect upon the position of the clans, and led to another great change in the theory of their descent. In the Parliament held at Edinburgh in December 1597, an Act was passed bearing the short but most pregnant title ‘That the inhabitants of the Ilis and Hielandis shaw their haldings.’ This Act proceeds on the narrative ‘that the inhabitants of the Highlands and Isles of this realm, which are for the most part of his Highness’s annexed property has not only frustrated his Majesty of the yearly payment of his proper rents and due service addebted by them to his Majesty furth of the said lands, but that they have likewise through their barbarous inhumanity made and presently makes the said Highlands and Isles, which are most commodious in themselves as well by the fertility of the ground as by rich fishings, be so altogether unprofitable both to themselves and to all others his Highness’s lieges within this realm, they neither interfering any civil or honest society amongst themselves neither yet admitted others his Highness’s lieges to traffic within their bounds with safety of their lives and goods;’ and in order that they ‘may the better be reduced to ane godly honest and civil manner of living It is statute and ordained that all landlords chieftains and leaders of clans, principal householders, heritors and others possessors or pretending right to any lands within the Highlands and Isles shall betwixt this and the fifteenth day of May next to come compear before the Lords of his Highness’s Exchequer at Edinburgh or where it shall happen to sit for the time and there bring and produce with them all their infeftments rights and titles whatsomever whereby they claim right and title to any part of the lands and fishings within the bounds foresaid, and then find sufficient caution acted in the books of Exchequer for yearly and thankful payment to his Majesty of his rents yearly duties and service addedit by them furth of the lands possessed and occupied by them or any in their names and that they themselves their men, tenants, servants, and dependants shall be answerable to his Highness’s laws and Justices.’ The penalty imposed upon them in case of their failure to appear and find caution was, that they were ‘to forfeit amit and tyne (lose) all pretended infeftments and other right and title they have or may pretend to have to any lands whatever they have holden or pretend to hold of his Majesty either in property or superiority which their pretended infeftments and titles thereof in case of failure are now as then and then as now declared by this present Parliament to be null and of no avail force or effect in themselves.’^[473] It has been necessary to quote this Act at some length, in order to show what a powerful weapon it placed in the hands of the Crown, and the embarrassing and precarious position in which it placed the greater proportion of the clans. Many of them had received charters of their lands which had perished during the troubles and conflicts which had followed the forfeiture of the Lords of the Isles. Others had no other right to their lands than what was derived from the forfeited lords. In other cases, where the right to the clan demesne was the subject of dispute between different septs, both parties had received at different times a quasi-title to them. In many cases the nominal superiority was feudally vested in an alien family, while the land was actually possessed by one of the clans; and in many others they had no title but immemorial possession, which they maintained by the sword; while, on the other hand, those who already possessed a nominal right to the lands under feudal titles which they had been unable to enforce, or who saw a great prospect, through the threatened forfeitures, of acquiring possessions in the Highlands and Isles, would eagerly avail themselves of the opportunity afforded them by this Statute. The chiefs of the clans thus found themselves compelled to defend their rights upon grounds which could compete with the claims of their eager opponents, and to maintain an equality of rank and prestige with them in the Heralds’ Office, which must drive them to every device necessary to effect their purpose; and they would not hesitate to manufacture titles to the land when they did not exist, and to put forward spurious pedigrees better calculated to maintain their position when a native descent had lost its value and was too weak to serve their purpose.

From this period manuscript histories of the leading Highland families began to be compiled, in which these pretensions were advanced and spurious charters inserted, and from these manuscript histories were compiled the later account of the clans contained in the Peerage and Baronage, as well as in the ‘Inquiry and the Genealogy and Present State of the Ancient Scottish Surnames, with the Origin and Descent of the Highland Clans and Family of Buchanan, by William Buchanan of Auchmar,’ published in the year 1723. The form which these pretentious genealogies took was that of making the eponymus or male ancestor of the clan a Norwegian, Dane, or Norman, or a cadet of some distinguished family, who succeeded to the chiefship and to the territory of the clan by marriage with the daughter and heiress of the last of the old Celtic line, thus combining the advantage of a descent which could compete with that of the great Norman families with a feudal succession to their lands; and the new form of the clan genealogy would have the greater tendency to assume this form where the clan name was derived not from a personal name or patronymic but from a personal epithet of its founder. Thus Hacken, a Norwegian, was said from his prowess to have been termed Grandt, or great, and his grandson Aulan, or Allan Grandt, marries Mora, daughter and heiress of Neil Macgregor, a descendant of Gregory the Great, king of Scotland, with whom he obtains the barony of Bellachastell and Freuchie in Strathspey, the patrimony of the Grants; Cambro, a Dane,^[474] in the beginning of the reign of Alexander the Second, marries the daughter and heiress of MacMartin, proprietor of that part of Lochaber now possessed by Lochiel, chief of the Camerons;^[475] Colin Fitzgerald, son to the earl of Kildare in Ireland, marries the daughter and heiress of Kenneth Matheson, from whom his son Kenneth was called Mackenneth or Mackenzie, and obtained with her the lands of Kintail;^[476] Angus MacIntosh, descended from Shaw Macduff, a second son of the earl of Fife, marries Eva, daughter and heiress of Gilpatrick, son of Dougal Dall, chief of the Clan Chattan, and obtained with her the lands of Glenluy and Locharkaig;^[477] and even the powerful family of the Campbells, who had always supported the Crown, and whose chief had been created earl of Argyll, caught the infection, and now asserted that Malcolm, son of Duibhne, the eponymus of the clan, had gone to Normandy, and there married the daughter and heiress of the Norman family of De Campobello, and took the name, which was corrupted into Campbell, and his son marries the inevitable Eva, daughter of Paul MacDuibhne, the last of the old line.^[478]

The foundation of the Grant story seems merely to be that the earliest Grant known was Gregory le Grant, whose sons Laurence and Robert called Grant (dicti Grant) witness an agreement between the bishop of Moray and John Bisset in 1258. The name Grant is obviously a personal epithet, and may as well be derived from the Gaelic Grannda, ill-favoured, as from the Latin Grandis, or any other foreign word which resembles it.

The Clan Chameron, as we have seen, formed originally one tribe with the Clan Chattan, and their true ancestor in the early part of the reign of Alexander the Second can be ascertained, for the Irish MSS. deduce their descent from a certain Gillroid, son of Gillamartan, to whom a line of Celtic progenitors is given, and he seems to be the same person with the Gillroth who, according to Fordun, was the chief supporter of Gillespic Macohegan, of the line of MacWilliam, who raised an insurrection in 1222, as a charter of lands in Galloway, about the same period, is witnessed by Gillespic Macohegan and Gilleroth son of Gillemartan.^[479]

But the most remarkable of these spurious origins is that claimed by the Mackenzies. It appears to have been first put forward by Sir George Mackenzie, first Earl of Cromarty, who wrote an account of the family in the form of a letter, and afterwards a shorter account under the title of ‘The Genealogie of the Mackenzies preceding the year 1661, written in the year 1669 by a persone of qualitie,’^[480] of which there is no doubt he was the author. The story, as told by him in the first account, is this:—‘Tradition informs us that our first was a sone of the earl of Kildare’s, who came to Scotland in King Alexander the Third’s time, called Coline Gerald, fought on the side of the Scots at the battle of Largs;’ but finding that there was no earl of Kildare till 1290, he corrects it by making him son of John Fitz-Thomas, chief of the Geraldines in Ireland, and father of John, first earl of Kildare, who was slain in 1261. But in the second account, two sons of John Fitz-Thomas, Colin and Galen, fled to Scotland, were graciously received by Alexander the Third, and the next year fought at the battle of Largs. After the battle Walter Stewart was sent with forces to reduce the Isles, and builds a fort in Kintail, called the Danting Isle, in which Colin Fitzgerald is placed with a garrison. He then marries the daughter of Kenneth MacMahon or Matheson, with whom he gets one-half of Kintail, the other half belonging to the earl of Ross, and has a son Kenneth, from whom his descendants were called M‘Channiches, taking their patronymic from the M‘Mahon rather than from Colin, whom they esteemed a stranger. In support of this story two documents are quoted. First, a fragment of the records of Icolmkill, which he says were preserved by him, and mention the principal actors in the battle of Largs, among whom is ‘a stranger and Irishman of the family of the Geraldines, who, driven from Ireland, was in the following year graciously received by the king, remained at his court, and valiantly fought in the foresaid battle, and afterwards fought against the Islesmen, and was left among them in garrison.’^[481] The other is a charter by King Alexander, granting, for faithful service rendered by Colin the Irishman (per Colinum Hybernum) to the said Colin the whole lands of Kintail as a barony. This charter bears to be granted in the sixteenth year of his reign, before the following witnesses—Archibald, bishop of Moray; Walter Stewart; Henry de Balioth, chamberlain; Arnold de Campan; and Thomas Hostiarius, sheriff of Inverness.^[482] The same mistake is here committed, as is usual in manufacturing these pedigree charters, by making it a crown charter erecting the lands into a barony. Kintail could not have been a barony at that time, and the earl of Ross and not the king was superior, for in 1342 the earl of Ross grants the ten davachs of the lands of Kintail to Reginald, son of Roderick of the Isles;^[483] and we find that the Mackenzies held their lands of the earl of Ross, and afterwards of the duke of Ross till 1508,^[484] when they were all erected into a barony by King James the Fourth, who gave them a crown charter. An examination of the witnesses, too, usually detects these spurious charters, and in this case it is conclusive against the charter. Andrew was bishop of Moray from 1223 to 1242, and there was no bishop of that name in the reign of Alexander the Third. Henry de Baliol was chamberlain in the reign of Alexander the Second, and not of Alexander the Third. Thomas Hostiarius belongs to the same reign, and had been succeeded by his son Alan long before the date of this charter. The names of the witnesses seem to have been taken from some charter of Alexander the Second, which may have been granted in the sixteenth year of his reign. It may be said that this was a genuine charter of Alexander the Second, and that Colin Fitzgerald may have come over in his reign; but then what becomes of the fragment of the Chronicle of Icolmkill, which clearly connects him with the battle of Largs? The two must stand or fall together, and the evidence of the construction of a false legend is too palpable to be disputed.^[485] The earl of Cromarty refers to tradition; but if not the actual inventor of the story, it must have taken its rise not very long before, for no trace of it is to be found in the Irish MSS., the history of the Geraldine family knows nothing of it,^[486] and MacVureach, who must have been acquainted with the popular history of the western clans, was equally unacquainted with it. We have seen that in the second edition of the story the earl gives Colin a brother Galen, and he is claimed by the Macleans as their ancestor, who likewise superseded their older traditionary history by a Fitzgerald origin; but we can trace how this arose, and it will illustrate how these later forms of the clan origins were constructed. In the Irish MSS. the Mackenzies and Macleans have quite a different origin assigned to them, and there is no apparent connection between them. The Mackenzies are brought from a certain Gilleon Og, son of Gilleon na hairde, but in the genealogies of the Macleans there occurs at a later period a Gilleon, whose pedigree is quite different. In a later form of the genealogy, however, preserved by MacVureach, the two Gilleons have been identified, and a new genealogy manufactured from those of the two clans. The pedigrees of the Mackenzies and Mathesons are combined till they reach Gilleon na hairde, and they then merge into that of the Macleans. The Mackenzies and Macleans are thus brought from two brothers, and when the Mackenzies adopted the Fitzgerald origin the Macleans naturally followed suit.

The earl, not content with putting forward this spurious pedigree of his own clan, showed his talent for constructing new pedigrees in the case of the Macleods, whom he took under his protection in consequence of the acquisition by the Mackenzies of the island of Lewis, the patrimony of one of the two great branches of that powerful clan. Their pedigree, as shown in the Irish MSS., had already been tampered with, for in a MS. history of the Rosses of Balnagown, written prior to the Cromarty MS., it is stated that three sons of the king of Denmark, called Gwine, Loid, and Leandres, came out of Denmark and landed in the north of Scotland. ‘Gwine, conquest the Hieland brayes of Cathness; Loid conquest the Lewis, of whom M‘Loid is descended; Leandres conquest Braychat be the sworde.’ By the Gwine here mentioned the ancestor of the Clan Gunn seems to be meant, and Leandres is obviously the Gilleandres from whom the Clan Andres, or old Rosses, took their name. This derivation of the Macleods did not satisfy the ingenious earl, and after narrating the history of the Norwegian kings of Mann and the Isles, taken entirely from the Chronicle of Mann, he adds that Harald, the son of Godred Don, who usurped the kingdom in 1249, and was arrested by the king of Norway when attending his court and detained there, was succeeded by Leodus, his only son, who married Adama, daughter to Ferquhar, earl of Ross, and by her had Torkell and Tormoth, who founded the families of Lewis and Harris.^[487] Of this there is, however, not one word in the Chronicle, which knows nothing of Harald after his imprisonment in Norway. This is the first appearance of the supposed descent of the Macleods from the Norwegian kings of Mann, of which the ingenious earl was no doubt the author, if he was not also the inventor of the Fitzgerald story; but it is again improved upon by the account furnished to Douglas for his Baronage, where Harald is given up, and Olave the Black, king of Mann, who died in 1237, and whose second wife was Christina, daughter of Ferquhard, earl of Ross, is substituted, and said to have had by her three sons—‘Leod, the undoubted progenitor of the Clan Macleod; Guin, of whom the Clan Gunn in Sutherland are descended; and Leandres, of whom the Clan Leandres in Ross-shire;’ but the Chronicle which mentions his marriage knows nothing of these sons, and this filiation must be regarded as equally spurious with the other.^[488] It is probable, however, that we have a fragment of the true pedigree of the Macleods in one of the Irish MSS., which places Leod in the thirteenth century, and makes him son of Gillemuire, son of Raice, son of Olbair Snoice, son of Gillemuire, whose mother is said to have been Ealga of the Fair Locks, daughter of Harold, king of Lochlan or Norway.^[489] They were Celtic in the male line, Norwegian in the female.

The supposed descent of the Macintoshes from the MacDuffs, earls of Fife, was, no doubt, based on the interpretation of the name, which means literally ‘the son of the thane;’ but this theory of their descent could only have arisen after the legend of Macduff, thane of Fife, assumed a prominent place in the fabulous history of Scotland. He was the thane par excellence, and the MacIntoshes were naturally connected with him as such; but, as there were in reality no thanes of Fife, and the old earls never bore that title, this descent cannot be supported, and must fall along with the supposed marriage with the heiress of Clan Chattan, and the charter said to have been granted in 1338 by David II., which is no doubt a spurious pedigree charter, and commits the usual blunder of making it a crown charter, while the superiority of Lochaber was in the Lords of the Isles. In the MS. histories of the MacIntoshes, the whole race, including the old MacIntoshes, is brought from the thane of Fife, but there is another form of it which attaches the legend to the later family, the descendant of Malcolm MacIntosh, who, by the influence of the Lords of the Isles, after the secession of the old Clan Chattan in 1429, acquired the position of Captain of the Clan; for we are told in the Knock MS. that Angus of the Isles had, by the daughter of John Gruamach Mackay, ‘the mother of the first Laird of MacIntosh, for a son of MacDuff, thane of Fife, coming after manslaughter to shelter himself in Macdonald’s house, got her daughter with child, went to Ireland with Edward Bruce, where he was killed; by which means MacIntosh is of natural (illegitimate) descent, his progenitor being got in that manner. MacIntosh in the ancient language signifies a Thane’s son. The boy was brought up by Macdonald, who in process of time procured a competent estate for him in the Braes of Lochaber and Braes of Murray.’^[490] This was Callum beg or Malcolm MacIntosh, whose son Duncan was the first Captain of Clan Chattan. The name MacIntosh, however, clearly implies that they were the descendants of a thane. In the family histories the MacIntoshes of Monzievaird in Stratherne and of Tiryny in Athole are made cadets of the Macintosh, but we know that they were in reality derived from the thanes of Struan and of Glentilt respectively, and we must likewise look elsewhere for the thane from whom the old Macintoshes of Badenoch descended. Now we find that in 1170 King William the Lion grants the lands of Brass, now Birse, in Deeside, to the bishops of Aberdeen, ‘his thaynes being however excepted,’ that is, retaining their lands as thanes. In 1226 King Alexander the Second grants to the bishop of Moray the lands of Rathmorcus or Rothymurchus to be held in free forest; and in 1241 to the bishop of Aberdeen the right to hold his lands of Brass or Birse in free forest.^[491] These grants in free forest would exclude the thanes of their lands, but we find in 1382 a precept by King Robert the Second directed to his son Alexander Stewart, Lord of Badenoch, requiring him to restrain Farchard MacToschy and his adherents from disturbing the bishop of Aberdeen and his tenants in the lands of Brass, and to oblige him to prosecute his claim by form of law.^[492] This Farchard appears in the genealogy of the old MacIntoshes at the time, and the Lord of Badenoch must have been regarded as his overlord. The tradition of the MacIntoshes is that Rothiemurchus was their earliest possession, and when Alexander MacIntosh obtains a feudal right to the lands in 1464 he is termed thane of Rothymurchus.^[493] It seems probable that the name was derived from the thanes of Brass, who may also have been thanes of Rothiemurchus, and from whom the old MacIntoshes were descended. In their genealogy the name of Gillemichael, or the servant of St. Michael, appears in place of the spurious Angus, the supposititious husband of Eva, and St. Michael was the patron saint of the parish of Birse.^[494] As possessors of Rothiemurchus they are brought into immediate contact with that branch of the old Clan Chattan whose principal seat was Dalnavert, and no doubt were, as indicated in the older genealogies, a branch of that clan. The representatives of these older MacIntoshes were, beyond doubt, the Shaws of Rothiemurchus and the Farquharsons of Strathdee, who extended from Badenoch as far as Birse, and whose head in 1464 was Alexander Keir MacIntosh.

The resemblance of the name of Campbell in its more modern form to De Campobello no doubt led to the supposed descent of the Campbells from a Norman family of that name, but in order to produce a close resemblance the Norman name has been inverted. Its real form was not De Campobello, but De Bello Campo, and in Norman French Beauchamp. The resemblance is still further lost in the older form of the name of the clan, which was Cambell. The first of the race who appears on record with that designation is Gillespie Cambell, who is mentioned in 1263 as having received a grant of the lands of Mestreth and Salewhop, that is, Menstry and Sawchop, from King Alexander the Third.^[495] In one of the Irish genealogies his father Dubhgal, son of Duncan, who is termed M‘Duine in the charter of David II., appears as ‘Dubhgal Cambel a quo’, that is, from whom the clan is named, and there seems little doubt that it was a personal epithet analogous to that of Cameron, and that from him the family formerly called MacDuibhne took his later name. His son was Cailin Mor, and from him the head of the family bears the name of MacCailin Mor, commonly corrupted to MacCallum Mor.

A foreign descent has likewise been attributed to the old earls of Lennox, from whom the Clanpharlan and other Highland families were undoubtedly descended, and it has been supposed that Alwyn MacArchill, an Angle of Northumbria, was father of the first earl of Lennox. The first known earl of Lennox undoubtedly bore the name of Alwyn, who had a son Alwyn, second earl, father of Maelduin, and it is equally certain that an Alwyn MacArchill repeatedly appears as witnessing charters of David the First. This latter Alwyn first appears in the Lennox pedigree in Crawford’s Peerage, published in 1716, where he is identified with the first Alwyn. The next step in the process was to connect Arkill, the father of Alwyn, with a certain Archillus, son of Aykfrith, a Saxon, who had large estates in Northumbria, and fled to Scotland in 1070 to evade the vengeance of William the Conqueror, and thus a Saxon origin is assigned to the earls of Lennox. There is nothing, however, to support this theory except the resemblance of names. Alwyn MacArchill never appears bearing the title of Comes or Earl, and while he flourished during the reign of David the First, and never appears after the year 1155, the first mention of Alwyn, earl of Lennox, cannot be placed earlier than the year 1193, and between these dates we find David, earl of Huntingdon, the brother of Malcolm the Fourth and William the Lion, in possession of the earldom. There is therefore absolutely no authority for this descent, and it was certainly unknown prior to the eighteenth century.^[496] On the other hand, Muredach Albanach, who was contemporary with Alwyn, earl of Lennox, gives him a Celtic father Muredach, and thus supports the old Irish pedigree, which makes him son of Muredach, son of Maeldobhen, a descent antecedently probable, as this name of Maldoven or Maeldouen occurs among the later earls, while the Annals of Ulster record that in 1216 ‘Trad O’Mailfabhail, chief of Cinel Fergusa, with his brothers and many others, was slain by Muireadhach, son of the Mormaer of Lennox,’ and the Celtic title of Mormaer could hardly be borne by a Saxon earl. This Maeldouen, the grandfather of Alwyn, first earl, and the true ancestor of the race, must have lived in the early part of the twelfth century, and is thus contemporary with Meldoinneth, the son of Machedach, the ‘judex bonus and discretus,’ who, with Constantine earl of Fife, and Dufgal son of Mocche, qui fuit senex, joined in perambulating the lands of Kyrknesse; and as the latter appears in the old Irish genealogy of the Macleans as the grandfather of a lay abbot of Lismore and the ancestor of a Celtic clan, so in Meldoinneth, son of Machedach, we may possibly recognise the Maldobhnaigh, the grandfather of Alwyn, and the ancestor of the Gaelic Lords of the Lennox.

The group of clans which sprang from the Lords of the Isles had their origin within the historic period, and their pedigree is too well authenticated to render a spurious version of it possible; while as the lands they held of the Lords of the Isles were in the main confirmed after the forfeiture of the last lord by the Crown, they were left without any great motive to do so; but two other clans, who were in reality not connected with them, seem to have thought it for their interest to claim likewise a descent from the Lords of the Isles, and both were connected with the earldom of Athole. These were the Clan Donnachie or Robertsons of Strowan, and the MacNabs of Glendochart. The former clan simply exchanged Andrew de Atholia, the undoubted father of Duncan de Atholia, the eponymus of the clan, for Angus of the Isles, but as Duncan is repeatedly designated in charters and other documents the son of Andrew de Atholia, the supposed connection with the Lords of the Isles is untenable. The MacNabs are stated by Buchanan of Auchmar to be descended of a son of the first abbot of Inchaffray, whose surname was M‘Donald, in the beginning of the reign of Alexander the Second. Inchaffray, however, was founded in the reign of William the Lion, and the first abbot was Malis, a pastor and hermit, and the second was Innocent, who had been prior, and neither could have been connected with the Macdonalds. The name MacNab certainly means the son of the abbot, but we must look elsewhere for the monastery of which he must have been the lay abbot. In the seventh century St. Fillan founded a monastery in Glendochart, the upper part of which took its name of Strathfillan from him, and in the reign of King William we find the abbot of Glendochart ranking along with the earls of Atholl and of Menteath.^[497] As the property possessed by the MacNabs lay in Glendochart, and we find the name of Gillafaelan, or servant of St. Fillan, occurring in their oldest genealogy, we may certainly recognise in them the descendants of the lay abbots of Glendochart. To the same class we may probably add the Clan Gregor. Besides the genealogy of this clan contained in the Irish MSS., Dean Macgregor furnishes us with one which may probably be viewed as the native tradition. In it Gregor, the eponymus of the clan, has a different ancestry, and his pedigree is taken up to a certain Aoidh Urchaidh, or Hugh of Glenurchay, which, as Glenurchay was an old possession of the MacGregors, may be viewed as the native tradition and more probable descent. The usual calculation would place him in the end of the twelfth century, but the Dean connects him at once with Kenneth MacAlpin in the ninth century,^[498] and thus the supposed royal descent of the MacGregors must be relegated to the same category with the descent of the other clans from the kings of Dalriada. The son of this Aodh bore, however, the name of Gillafaelan, or servant of St. Fillan, and as the MacGregors likewise possessed property in Glendochart, they were more probably connected with the MacNabs. The MacKinnons too were closely connected with the abbacy of Iona, and repeatedly furnished abbots to that monastery. The traditional connection between these three clans—the MacNabs, the MacGregors, and the MacKinnons—is further evidenced by two bonds of friendship—one in 1606 between the MacKinnons and the MacNabs, in which, as being come of one house and being of one surname, Finlay MacNab of Bowane acknowledges Lauchlan MacKinnon of Strathardel ‘as ane kynd chieff and of ane house;’ the other somewhat later between Lachlan MacKinnon of Strathardill and James MacGregor of MacGregor, in which they are said to be ‘descended lawfully frae twa brethren of auld descent.’^[499] The Clan Lawren we have seen were also descended from an abbot. The Clan Mhic Duibhside or Macduffys may have derived their name from Duibhside who appears in the Annals of Ulster in 1164 as Ferleighinn or lector of Iona, and Diarmada, the grandfather of Gillachattan, the eponymus of the Clan Chattan, is said in the old Irish genealogy to have been called the Ferleighinn or lector. Tradition attaches to Gillachattan the epithet of Clerech or Cleric, and he and his descendants the Clan Vuireach are said to have been hereditary lay parsons of Kingussie, one of whom, Duncan the son of Kenneth, appears in 1438 as Duncan parson. From him the chief of the Clan Vuireach takes his name of Macpherson. The earls of Ross too descend from the lay priests of Applecross.

The conclusion, then, to which this analysis of the clan pedigrees which have been popularly accepted at different times has brought us, is, that so far as they profess to show the origin of the different clans, they are entirely artificial and untrustworthy, but that the older genealogies may be accepted as showing the descent of the clan from its eponymus or founder, and within reasonable limits for some generations beyond him, while the later spurious pedigrees must be rejected altogether. It may seem surprising that such spurious pedigrees and fabulous origins should be so readily credited by the Clan families as genuine traditions, and receive such prompt acceptance as the true fount from which they sprung; but we must recollect that the fabulous history of Hector Boece was as rapidly and universally adopted as the genuine annals of the national history, and became rooted in those parts of the country to which its fictitious events related as local traditions. When Hector Boece invested the obscure usurper Grig with the name and attributes of a fictitious king, Gregory the Great, and connected him with the royal line of kings, the Clan Gregor at once recognised him as their eponymus ancestor, and their descent from him is now implicitly believed in by all the MacGregors. It is possible, however, from these genealogies, and from other indications, to distribute the clans in certain groups, as having apparently a closer connection with each other, and these groups we hold in the main to represent the great tribes into which the Gaelic population was divided before they became broken up into clans. The two great tribes which possessed the greater part of the Highlands were the Gallgaidheal or Gael in the west, who had been under the power of the Norwegians, and the great tribe of the Moravians, or Men of Moray, in the Central and Eastern Highlands. To the former belong all the clans descended of the Lords of the Isles, the Campbells and Macleods probably representing the older inhabitants of their respective districts; to the latter belong in the main the clans brought in the old Irish genealogies from the kings of Dalriada of the tribe of Lorn, among whom the old Mormaers of Moray appear. The group containing the Clan Andres or old Rosses, the Mackenzies and Mathesons, belong to the tribe of Ross, the Clan Donnachy to Athole, the Clan Lawren to Stratherne, and the Clan Pharlane to Lennox, while the group containing the MacNabs, Clan Gregor, and MacKinnons, appear to have emerged from Glendochart, at least to be connected with the old Columban monasteries.^[500] The Clans, properly so called, were thus of native origin; the surnames partly of native and partly of foreign descent.

It is not much more than a century and a half since the Highland clans combined, in the eighteenth century, to alter the dynasty of Great Britain, and shook the stability of the throne, and since the President of the Supreme Court laid before Government a memorial giving a detailed statement of their names, their military strength, and the names of their chiefs; and not much more than a hundred years later, the same Court has been called upon to answer the question, What is a clan? and to determine whether the word has any legal significance whatever in the social organisation of the Highlands. In 1632, James, earl of Moray, let the lands of Faillie and others to Donald MacGillephadrich, head of the sept of Clan Bean, one of the sixteen tribes which made up the Clan Chattan, for his lifetime and the lifetime of the two next heirs-male, and for three periods of nineteen years to his heirs-male and assignees of the Clan Chattan, and this tack was confirmed to his son Donald MacBean. In 1771 the earl of Moray grants a feu-right of these lands to Donald MacBean, and his heirs-male and assignees whatsoever of the said Clan of Clan Chattan, and in the same year Donald MacBean sells the lands to Captain William Macgillivray, the head of another of the sixteen clans, and to his heirs and assignees of the Clan Chattan. His son, the last of the direct line of the Macgillivrays of Dunmaglass, died in 1852, and the question arose whether his heirs-at-law, who were not of the clan, could succeed. In order to determine this question, the collateral heir-male, John Macgillivray of Dunmaglass, raised an action in the Supreme Court to have it declared that no person was entitled to succeed to the late John Lachlan MacgillivrayMacgillivray of Dunmaglass, who was not a member of the Clan Chattan, but the Court held that clanship of Clan Chattan, as a condition of heirship and a limitation of the succession of heirs, could not be recognised or enforced by law. The Court thus defined the modern position of a clan:—

Such being the view of the Supreme Court of the country as to the modern position of the clan, it remains for us to inquire how far any of the features of the ancient tribal land tenure are still preserved in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.