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- From Douglas Hickling, 516 Blair Avenue, Piedmont CA 94611.Dhhic@comcast.net
Continued from "CLAN origins MACKENZIE"
The 20th century historians have looked with even greater skepticism atthe traditional listing of the chiefs who precede Alexander Ionraic,based on the lack of any record evidence of their existence and the factthat the early pedigrees are contradictory.
The most scholarly and compelling of these 20th century examinations ofthe early Mackenzie chiefs is "Traditions of the Mackenzies," an articleby William Matheson, published in TRANSACTIONS OF THE GAELIC SOCIETY OFINVERNESS, volume 39-40 (1942-1950). Matheson begins by noting thatAlexander Mackenzie's account of early clan history gives us a"conflation" of the traditions recorded by several 17th centuryhistorians, "slightly modified from the genealogical point of view so asto accord with the manuscript of 1467." He compares the pedigrees of theearly chiefs set forth in the Applecross manuscript and by the first EarlCromartie, each of which begins with Colin Fitzgerald, and notes thatthey frequently contradict each other. He comments, at 195, that justbecause the descent of the Mackenzies from Colin Fitzgerald has "beenshown by Skene to be an invention of the 17th century and has not beenseriously entertained by subsequent writers, "does not mean "that othernames in the pedigrees are fictitious." He explains that, in order tounravel this tangled skein of traditions represented in the conflictingpedigrees, it would be helpful to compare the 17th century histories withthe manuscript of 1467, dating two centuries earlier. Interpreting the1467 manuscript somewhat differently than Skene and in the light of thetraditional, but conflicting histories, Matheson sets forth this:
PEDIGREE VII
1. Kenneth, son of Mathan (Mathew), took a prominent part inwarfare against the Norsemen in 1262. According to the familyhistorians, he married a daughter of MacIver, possibly Iomhar Crom.Kenneth was followed by his son,
2. Murdoch, who, according to most family historians, married adaughter of Macaulay. Their son Duncan became the ancestor of theMathesons and the ancestor of the Mackenzies was their other son,
3. Kenneth na sroin, who, according to most of the familyhistorians, married a daughter of Macdougall of Lorn (possibly Alexanderde Ergadia). He identified with the anti-Bruce faction even though hissuperior, the Earl of Ross, supported Bruce. The Earl punished him bytaking away his lands and by imprisonment and execution, the latteroccurring at Inverness in 1346. Kenneth's two sons, Murdoch and John hadfled to their mother's people in Lorn. Murdoch returned to Ross,toregain his lost inheritance, but always remained more or less an outlawas indicated by his sobriquet, Black Murdo of the Caves. He was probablyrecognized as chief in his day, but, for some reason, the succession fellto the progeny of his brother,
4. John, who probably never returned to Ross and is thereforeentirely unknown to the 17th century historians. His son,
5. Kenneth, may have married a daughter of John of the Isles, whichmay have paved the way for his return to Ross, although the decisivefactor was the death of the last of the old Earls of Ross in 1372. Hewas succeeded by his son,
6. Murdoch of the bridge, who may have married a daughter ofMacleod of Lewis (or Harris). He had at least two sons, Kenneth andAlexander. Kenneth is "on record as Kenneth Mor in 1428 and as KeneathMurchirson in 1414." The chiefship fell to his brother,
7. Alexander Ionraic, "said in the family histories to have been ason of Murdoch and this may well be so." "According to the most likelyaccount, he married a daughter of Angus mac Ranald. first of the oldMacDonalds of Morar. (Some of the family historians seem to haveconfused them with the MacDougalls of Lorn because in Gaelic they werestyled Clann Dubhghaill.)"
Matheson recognized, as did Skene, that the manuscript of 1467 showedthat the Mackenzie pedigree connected with that of the Mathesons, but heshowed, at 205-207, that the point of this connection, as shown in themanuscript, was chronologically impossible, making it necessary to shiftthat point. Under Matheson's construction, Kenneth, son of Mathan, isthe father of Murdoch, who is the father of Kenneth na sroin, the fatherof John. Under Alexander Makenzie's construction of the pedigree, Johnwas the son of Kenneth na sroin,
not his father. Even so, both pedigrees contain the names Murdoch,Kenneth, John, and Kenneth, in that order, beginning with the most recentname recorded in the manuscript.
Matheson makes plain that he does not argue that his version of thepedigree of the early chiefs should be regarded as the final word or thatthe traditions of the earlier historians should be completely thrownout. At 213, he says:
The foregoing reconstruction of early Mackenzie history andgenealogy inevitably contains a considerable element of conjecture, andall that is attempted is to make more coherent use of the sources,traditional and documentary, than has been done, for example, in the onlyexisting full scale history of the clan. [This is a reference toAlexander Mackenzie's HISTORY.] This, in turn, may make it easier toassess the significance of further evidence that may come to light as ameans of confirming the picture that has been drawn or showing where itrequires modification. It is certainly desirable that the traditionsdrawn upon in this paper, and other similar traditions, should not beignored, and that efforts to interpret them aright should continue.
Matheson's attempt to reconcile the conflicting Mackenzie traditions bothamong themselves and with new evidence, as well as with the manuscript of1467, has served to highlight the unreliability of the traditionalhistories. Despite Matheson's plea that efforts to interpret the earlytraditions correctly should continue, the 20th century publications,other than THE SCOTS PEERAGE account, which questions many of thosetraditions, have chosen to ignore altogether anything before AlexanderMackenzie Ionraic.
The only comprehensive 20th century history of the Mackenzies is SOMEMACKENZIE PEDIGREES, completed by Duncan Warrand in 1937, but notpublished until 1965. Warrand was a well-regarded family historian, whoserved as co-editor of volume VI of THE COMPLETE PEERAGE. He refused togive any credibility to the existing pedigrees of the early Mackenzies,explaining, at 1-2:
It is not too much to say that the histories of the Clan Mackenzie,histories compiled for the most part in the dangerous seventeenthcentury, are wholly unreliable, at all events prior to 1475. The lateSheriff Macphail, whose knowledge of and sympathy with the Highlands havebeen amply recognized, was clearly of this opinion.
"The absence of record evidence in these early times may not initself be conclusive proof of a fabulous genealogy, but it is at leasthighly suspicious, the more so that the early charters, once cited inhistories, not only do not exist, but, if they did, are almost certainlyspurious."
The article on Seaforth in THE SCOTS PEERAGE really begins withAlexander Mackenzie, the upright, though five supposed chiefs are placed(quantum valeant) [for what it's worth] before him. Of these. the lastis Murdoch who is said to have died in 1416. In 1414, therefore, he mayby presumed to have been getting on in years, the father of sons, andthere is record evidence of Kenneth, son of Murdoch of Ross, who was thenengaged in the pacification of that district--
et Keneath Murchieson de Rosse laboranti in partibus Rossie proquiete regni ex causa considerata super compotum xli.' Again, in 1415,Alexander, son of Murdoch, and Rory, his brother, were prisoners inInverness Castle--et pro mensa Alexandri Murcherson et Ruthery fratrissui malefactorum ibidem in canceribus pro utilatate republice XIII li.'
These references may, indeed, have no relation to the Mackenzies(though it is by no means clear when that surname was first adopted), butat least one is furnished with an Alexander, son of Murdoch, as requiredby the family histories. With Alexander the account of the familycommences.
Alexander Mackenzie, known as Alexander Ionraic (the upright), had,according to THE SCOTS PEERAGE, both from John, Earl of Ross, and fromthe Crown, after the forfeiture of that earldom, several grants of land.His name, however, as Sheriff Macphail points out, does not appear in theRegister of the Great Seal or in any other public record. . . .
Although giving Alexander Ionraic a place in the early Mackenziepedigree, he was unwilling to do the same for either or both ofAlexander's purported wives, saying, at 3:
Into the question of Alexander's marriages, real or imaginary, it isnot proposed to enter.
Jean Dunlop, PhD, in her concise THE CLAN MACKENZIE, first published in1953, reaches a similar result, by largely ignoring the traditionalpedigrees of the early chiefs. Dunlop, in her own name and as aco-author with her husband, R. W. Munro, is one of Scotland's mosteminent historians. At page 5, she states that "the original Kenneth,who lived in the thirteenth century, is said to have descended from ayounger son of Gilleoin of the Aird." Her detailed genealogicaldiscussion of the early Mackenzies starts with Alexander Ionraic, butshe, too, does not identify his wife. The first Mackenzie wifeidentified by Dunlop is Alexander's daughter-in-law, "a daughter of LordLovat," who married Alexander's son, "Kenneth of the battle."
The same pattern is again followed in the most recently publishedpedigree of the early Mackenzies in BURKE'S PEERAGE & BARONETAGE (106thedition, 1999), at 723:
LINEAGE: According to Celtic genealogies the Mackenzies of Kintailstem from Gillian Og ("the Younger"), son of Gillian of the Air, ancestoralso of the Earls of Ross. Ninth in descent from Gillian, and the firstof these Mackenzies for whose existence there is documentary evidence,was:
Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail, called "Ionraic", imprisoned byJames I; died 1488, having had with two younger sons:
Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail.
The foregoing shows that BURKE'S has completely disregarded thetraditional pedigrees of the early Mackenzies, but it does recognize theexistence of Alexander Ionraic, clearly based upon the same record,relied upon by Warrand, that one Alexander, son of Murdoch, was aprisoner, although the date of the incarceration is stated to be 1415 byWarrand and 1427 by BURKE'S. Like Warrand, the BURKE'S editorsapparently regarded the traditional identity of Alexander's wife or wivesto be lacking sufficient reliability to be included.
In partial defense of the early Mackenzie histories, Matheson argues, at208 and 226 note 51, that, in addition to earlier histories no longerexisting, "the family historians also used . . . inscriptions ontombstones, and the records of religious houses dispersed after theReformation."
With candor seldom found in genealogical histories, James D. Mackenzie ofFindon, at 12, argues that there can be no positive certainty as to theMackenzie pedigree:
Peering into the mist of ages--back to a time when, however high theculture in other parts of Europe, our ancestors were, from their remoteposition, yet in a state of rude barbarism and ignorance, leaving littlemore than the tales of slaughter to guide their posterity--it were vainto seek a clear determination of their origins; and we must be content toaccept such details as we find, oral traditions being perhaps the mostreliable guide.
In support of the reliability of oral traditions, he quotes George (Sir)Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (1636-1691) in his DEFENCE OF THE ANTIQUITY OF THEROYAL LINE OF SCOTLAND (1685 edition), at 22:
It was ordinary in our Highland families, not only at burials, butat baptisms and marriages, to recite the genealogies for manygenerations, and we can well therefore understand how such ever-freshenedtradition faithfully endured.
But, it is not possible to construct a credible pedigree based upon asupposition that 17th century Mackenzie historians had access to earliersources, whether they were in writing or in traditions handed down orallythrough generations of Mackenzies, when: (1) the existing manu scripthistories contradict themselves and the manuscript of 1467, (2) most ofthe charters and other documents which may have helped sort out thecontradictory traditions and pedigrees have now been discredited, and (3)no one can tell which of the traditions are based upon fact, conjecture,or a desire to glorify the clan's history and bloodlines.
There is even less reason to give credence to the names of the wivesgiven in the traditional pedigrees. Both the manuscript of 1467 andMacVurich's BLACK BOOK OF CLANRANALD show the Mackenzie ancestral maleline, but are completely silent as to wives, mothers, and daughters.Their absence strongly indicates that the pedigrees, allegedly recited atlength at family events by generations of Mackenzies, were similarlylimited to Mackenzie males.
Particularly flagrant is the claim of a marriage between MargaretStrathbogie, daughter of the Earl of Atholl, and either Kenneth, Murdoch,or John Mackenzie. In a society and time in which one's class andancestry clearly counted, one would tend to remember a descent, and royalbloodline, from an earl's daughter, who, in turn, descended from KingJohn, of Magna Carta fame, and his parents, King Henry II and Eleanor ofAquitaine. Yet, neither the first Earl Cromartie nor John Mackenzie ofApplecross mention a Mackenzie-Strathbogie marriage--strong evidence thatthe marriage is an invention of a later century. In such aclass-conscious society and age, a marriage between the daughter of anearl, having a noble descent, and the chief of what was at that time aminor vassal clan, is inherently unlikely. In the absence of documentaryevidence of such a marriage or even that Margaret Strathbogie evenexisted, her name does not belong in any credible pedigree.
The names of the wives assigned to Alexander Mackenzie Ionraic similarlylack credibility. Well into the 19th century, some family historiansargued that his first wife was a daughter of the first Earl of Argyll,and they would no doubt continue to do so, but for the fact that it wasshown to be a chronological impossibility. The claim that he marrieddaughters of two unrelated Macdougal families seems too coincidental tobe accepted, especially when neither of these families seems to haveasserted the existence of such a daughter or marriage. The fact that oneof these alleged wives, Anna Macdougal, if she existed at all, is said tohave been a granddaughter of Colin (Sir) (of Glenurchy) Campbell, himselfa descendant of King Robert III of Scotland, may account for the factthat earlier generations of Mackenzie historians clung to her in theirpedigrees.
I conclude that the more recent 20th century Mackenzie histories, namelythose by Duncan Warrand, Jean Dunlop, and the editors of BURKE'S PEERAGE& BARONETAGE, have taken the only acceptable course in beginning theirMackenzie pedigrees with Alexander Ionraic and his son,Kenneth-a-bhlair. Although the Mackenzie family members, who havecontinued to rely on Margaret Strathbogie and Anna Macdougal inmaintaining their claims to a royal bloodline, may be disappointed, theycan no doubt find other, and provable, royal descents in their Mackenzieancestries, including that of Agnes Fraser, who married KennethMackenzie-a-bhlair. Agnes's mother, the redoubtable Violet Lyon, knownfor her skill in killing mountain lions, was the great-great-great-greatgranddaughter of King Robert II of Scotland.
NOTE: The differences in the spelling of names generally reflects thevarying orthography of the compilers of the several pedigrees.
Compiled by
Douglas Hickling
516 Blair Avenue
Piedmont CA 94611
Dhhic@comcast.net
510-655-6896
2 April 2002
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