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MacKinnon Clan History
Excerpts from 'The Scottish Highlanders' by Charles MacKinnon.
The Clan MacKinnon is one of the Siol Alpin family and is among Scotland's most ancient clans. Its associations have always
been Hebridean.
The clan counts King Alpin as its founder, and its slogan or war-cry is 'Cuimhnich bas Alpein', meaning 'Remember the death
of Alpin', who was beheaded in 841, in memory of which the MacKinnon chiefs have a second crest showing a severed head crowned
with an antique crown.
It was Alpin's great-grandson Findanus, the 4th MacKinnon chief, who gave the chiefs their Gaelic patronymic of MacFhionghuin,
sons of Fingon of Findanus, which is now the clan surname. It was Findanus too who brought Dunakin into the clan around the
year 900 by marrying a Norse princess nicknamed 'Saucy Mary'. The castle, Dun Haakon, was an old broch or fortress commanding
the narrow sound between Skye and the mainland, through which all ships had to pass or else attempt the stormy passage of
the Minch. Findanus and his bride ran a heavy chain across the sound and levied a toll on all shipping passing up and down!
The Princess lies buried on Beinn-Caillaich in Skye, her face reputedly turned towards Norway.
It was in the shadow of Dunakin that King Haakon IV's war galleys mustered in 1263 before the Battle of Largs, at which their
power was finally broken in Scotland.
Findanus, however, had his lands in Mull, and there were MacKinnons in Arran too who gave shelter to Robert Bruce. The clan
did not receive its great Skye estate unfil after Bannockburn when Bruce rewarded them with it. It stretches from Kyleakin
up to Broadford and then runs across Skye to Elgol and includes the islands of Pabay and Scalpay.
The chiefs, after Bannockburn, took their Lowland title from this estate of Strath Swordale or Strathardale and had their
seat at Dunringill Castle, of which nothing now remains, and Dunakin was held by a collateral branch of the chiefly family.
Like all the Hebridean clans, the MacKinnons were vassals of the Lords of the Isles, and they were made hereditary custodians
of the standards of weights and measures.
From the beginning the clan had very strong links with Iona where for centuries a branch of the chiefly family were hereditary
abbots, a position of such great prestige in the Highlands that it is certain that the MacKinnons belonged to the kin of Columba.
Iona is the burial ground of MacKinnon chiefs as well as of Scottish kings. There was a Fingon abbot of Iona in 966, and the
last abbot of the holy island was John MacKinnon, who was also Bishop of the Isles and who died in or around 1500.
During the time of the Lordship of the Isles the MacKinnon were frequently at feud with the MacLeans. One of the more pleasing
clan stories describes an early incident, probably fourteenth century, when MacLean of Duart and MacLaine of Lochbuie seized
the lands of the MacKinnon chief in Mull at a time when he was away in Skye. On his return The MacKinnon heard about it and
obtained the help of forty warriors from the Earl of Antrim. On his way back to Skye to raise more of his clan, he stopped
on Mull to find out how the land lay and heard that the MacLeans were lodged in Ledaig House without sentries and that their
followers were sleeping off a heavy carousal.
The MacKinnon made every man in his party cut and trim a fir caber, which they planted in the ground before Ledaig House during
the night. The chief himself planted an untrimmed one in front of the others and left his naked sword above the door. Next
morning the MacLeans realized that they had been at the mercy of the MacKinnons and had been spared, and they are said to
have withdrawn from the MacKinnon lands.
After the fall of the Lordship of the Isles, the MacKinnons and the MacLeans are generally to be found acting in concert and
were frequently linked by marriage ties.
The MacKinnon crest is an unusual one. It is a boar's head, which is common enough in the Highlands, but with the shankbone
of a deer in its mouth. The story of this crest is that in the fourteenth century The MacKinnon was hunting on the shores
of Loch Scavaig in Skye. He became separated from his hunting party and sheltered for the night in a cave, where he kindled
a fire to broil some venison. A wild boar entered the cave and attacked him just as he was slicing some meat from a haunch.
With presence of mind, he thrust the bone into the jaws of the beast, jamming them open, and killed it with the knife.
The MacKinnons were always a small clan but seem to have enjoyed a prestige greater than one would expect, perhaps from their
Iona and Columban connection. Sir Iain Moncreiffe has descibed them as a 'sacred' clan.
They had supported Bruce, and in due course they supported Montrose too and took part in the attempt to restore the Stuart
monarchy in 1650-1, being present at the Battles of Inverkeithing and Worcester. At Worcester Sir Lachlan Mor, the 28th chief,
rendered some sort of special service to Charles II for he was created a knight banneret on the field of battle, the last
or second-last such creation ever made.
The estate of Strath had been erected into a barony by Charles I on 15 January 1628 in favour of Sir Lachlan MacKinnon, the
26th chief, who died shortly afterwards.
A few years later, in 1639, the Covenanting Government under Argyll considered it desirable to check the pretensions of the
Island chiefs. Accordingly in a court held at lona, it was enacted that Mackinnon and others of his rank should sustain and
entertain no more than three gentlemen in their retinue. None must carry hagbuts or pistols, and only the chiefs and their
immediate households were permitted to wear swords and armour. A chief was to keep no more than one birlinn or galley of eighteen
oars; no bards or seannachies were to be retained, and gentlemen of Mackinnon’s rank were to use no more than one tun
of wine in a year.
In the Civil Wars of Charles I., the Mackinnons were staunchly loyal. Joining the gallant Marquess of Montrose in 1645, they
played a brilliant part at the desperate battles of Auldearn and Inverlochy, in the latter of which Argyll’s force was
cut to pieces with a loss of fifteen hundred men.
The chief of that time, Lachlan Mor Mackinnon, had been brought up at Inveraray by Argyll, but had married a daughter of Maclean
of Duart. In 1649 he was induced by that chief to join in an attack with two hundred followers on the lands of his former
guardian. The enterprise proved disastrous. Recognising the assailants by the badge in their bonnets, the Campbells attacked
furiously, giving no quarter, and the Mackinnons were cut to pieces.
Two years later, the young King, Charles II., having landed in Scotland, Mackinnon raised a battalion from his lands in Skye,
and marched to Worcester. There he is said to have saved the King’s life and to have been knighted on the field in consequence,
but the honour was not confirmed at the Restoration.
In the Jacobite rising of 1715 the Mackinnons joined the Earl of Mar, and took part at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and in 1745
they marched to Derby with Prince Charles Edward, and helped to win the battle of Falkirk. Half of them fell at Culloden.
The other half on the same day completely broke up Lord Loudoun’s force in Sutherlandshire.
In the romantic adventures of the Prince which followed, Mackinnon bore an outstanding part. It was on 2nd July that Charles
took refuge with them in Skye. That night they rowed him over to the mainland, and after many adventures handed him safely
to Angus Macdonald at Borrodale. Next day Mackinnon was taken prisoner, and after a year’s confinement in Tilbury Fort,
was tried for his life. He had been attainted, and was excepted from the Act of Indemnity passed in 1747, but was pardoned
on account of his years and of the fact that he had acted rather from a spirit of chivalry than of rebellion. As he was leaving
the court the Attorney-General asked him, "If King George were in your power, as you have been in his, what would you do?"
To which Mackinnon replied, "I would do to him, as he has this day done to me; I would send him back to his own country."
As a result of these events the Mackinnons had to part with Strathardle in 1765. Since then they have been landless in the
ancient country of their clan, and the last Chief of the senior line died unmarried and in reduced circumstances in 1808.
He was the great-grandson of John, elder son of Lachlan Mor, who fought for Charles II. at the battle of Worcester. On that
event the chief ship passed to the representative of Lachlan Mor’s second son Donald. At Worcester this Donald was taken
prisoner. On his release he went to Antigua in the West Indies, where, by a common corruption he was called Daniel, and it
was his great-great-grandson, William Alexander Mackinnon, who became thirty-third Chief in 1808. He sat in Parliament almost
uninterruptedly from 1819 till 1865. His representative, the present Chief, who resides at Gollanfield near Inverness, is
an enthusiast for all things Highland. His wife is the elder daughter of the late Lord Hood of Avalon and a niece of Sir Fitzroy
Donald Maclean, Bart., of Duart; and of his sons the elder at the beginning of the war of 1914 held a commission in the 1st
Battalion Cameron Highlanders, and the second was a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
In the tale of members of the clan who have distinguished themselves in the service of their country in recent times, must
be included Major-General Henry Mackinnon, who fell leading his brigade at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812, and Colonel Daniel Mackinnon
who commanded the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo and held the farm of Hougomont till he fell severely wounded. He afterwards
wrote the History of the Coldstream Guards. Others have been General George Henry Mackinnon of the Grenadiers, who fought
in the Kaffir War of 1846-7, and became Chief Commissioner of British Kaifraria; Colonel Lionel Mackinnon of the Coldstreams,
killed at Inkerman; and Colonel William Alexander Mackinnon, who distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny, while in another
field was Sir William Mackinnon, Bart., founder of the British India Steam Navigation Company.
The chiefship now passed to the descendants of the second son of sir Lachian Mor, the 28th chief, who became a banneret at
Worcester. This second son Donald had emigrated to Antigua circa 1680, as a result of a quarrel with his hot-tempered father.
The present chiefly family was therefore in the West Indies all during the Jacobite risings and had nothing whatever to do
with events in Britain. When the Antigua branch succeeded to the chiefship in 1808, there were no clan lands left, and they
therefore had also nothing to do with the shameful episode of the Skye clearances.
The only MacKinnon possession still in clan hands is Dunakin Castle, which belongs to the author, who is a direct male descendant
of Findanus who obtained it by marriage early in the tenth century; he also belongs to the Antigua branch of the chiefly family.
Sept of Clan MacKinnon: Love, MacKinney, MacKinning, Mackinven, MacMorran.
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