In 1306, only seven months after Wallace’s beheading, Robert was crowned King of Scotland, and it was he who felt the first unglanced stings: Only a few months after being crowned, he and his army were routed by the English, and he was forced to flee. The English executed his brother Neil. They captured his wife and queen, Elizabeth, his daughter Marjorie and his sister Christina. They took his sister Mary and placed her in an outdoor cage for all the public to see, and would keep her there for four years.
Nearly alone, sought by English assassins and spies, Robert escaped to the west, where he came upon the MacDonald stronghold of Saddell Castle and was welcomed by our Angus Og. The MacDonald took in Robert and gave him protection, spiriting him to one of our isles off of the coast of Ireland.
Once his strength returned to him, Robert returned to Scotland, newly armed with Islesmen. Now began his rise: For the next several years, he and his men proceeded from victory to victory, defeating much larger English armies and vanquishing those Scots who had risen against him. By March of 1314, almost all of Scotland was under his power, and so a massive English force moved north, led by Edward II, son of the recently deceased Edward I. On the 23rd of June, Robert and his united Scots met Edward’s army at Bannockburn.
It was on the second day of the battle, at the moment when English knights first began their fear, that Robert turned to Angus Og and asked him to bring in his MacDonalds, upon the right line. As the Highlanders moved forward, and saw their charge lying before them, Robert told Angus Og, “My hope is constant in thee.”
The MacDonalds ran with their swords and axes. There were so many of the Anglo-Saxons, so many more Englishmen than Scots, and yet the men of the Isles wrecked them, sent them. Our Lowland allies, too, brought spears and swords through English armour, and their cuts and thrusts said: Leave my country. Be gone.
When Edward fled the field, the whole of the English army fled behind him, and though England would not formally recognise it for several years, Scotland became independent on that battlefield. In recognition of the MacDonalds’ deeds, Robert declared that, henceforth, the men of Clan Donald would always be given the honoured place on the right wing of any Scottish army. As a further testament to his gratitude, Robert granted Angus Og MacDonald lands in the Highlands and Isles that once had belonged to Highlanders opposing Robert.
So it was that the MacDonalds came to Glen Coe.
For the glen was among those lands given to Angus Og, and he soon granted it to his son Iain Fraoch, Iain of the Heather, who became our first chief. Since the time of Iain, we have known ourselves as the MacIains of Glen Coe, wearing sprigs of heather in memory of our ancestor. For those of us who still make note of such things, the heather that grows all about the glen reminds us of him. It reminds us of the ancestors who wore it.
Before the MacDonalds, people called MacEanruig lived here, and a number live here still. In English, today, they are usually called Henderson, or MacHenry, or MacKendrick. Iain Fraoch was himself of MacEanruig blood; his mother was the daughter of Dugall MacEanruig, the leader of the MacEanruigs of Glen Coe. The MacEanruigs accepted Iain Fraoch as their chief, and in their honour, they have been the hereditary pipers of our clan ever since. Whenever we looked across to an enemy, whenever the MacIain chief returned to the glen from a journey, whenever one of us crossed to the burial isle for the final time, the music came in a MacEanruig’s breath.
Of course, Iain Fraoch’s father Angus Og was not the only chief to fight with Robert the Bruce, and the MacDonalds were not the only clan to gain from the victory at Bannockburn. One family, in particular, prospered much.
They were descended from a 13th century man named Gillespic, who lived in Clackmannanshire, in the Lowlands. Though Gillespic’s ancestry is not clear, it is thought that he did not come from the Gaels of the Highlands and Isles, but from those other Celts who had long inhabited the Lowlands around Glasgow, to the south of us, before the Anglo-Saxons invaded. Only later did Gillespic’s family come farther north and west, to Loch Awe at the southern tip of the Highlands, and even then, many of their lands and castles were in the English-speaking Lowlands. For generations after Gillespic, a nickname remained with them: “Crooked mouth.” This nickname, in Gaelic, is cam beul, and so they came to be called Campbell.
It was Neill Campbell, Gillespic’s grandson, who steadfastly served Robert the Bruce, receiving yet more lands as his reward. His service to Robert, in fact, served as the guiding example for his successors: Nearly all of them would ever bow to the Lowland kings and do their bidding. Though the Campbell chiefs spoke Gaelic and adopted many of the traditions of the Highlands, their abiding role was to police the Gaels in their midst, as the loyal sheriffs of the Lowland kings.
Thus, whenever the king newly discovered some dominion over one of the clans, he could rely upon his Campbells. Rather than attempt to invade the Highlands, and risk costly defeats, he could expand his power rather cheaply; he needed only to employ a local clan to accomplish his deeds for him. As the king’s authority grew further north and west, the authority of the Campbells grew with it. MacGregors, MacNaughtons, and so many others in the southern Highlands lost their homes, becoming feudal vassals of the king’s most grateful friend. The Campbell territories expanded beyond Loch Awe and spread throughout the Lowlands, while Campbell lords sought favour in Edinburgh, obtaining lawyers’ writs to seal courtly transactions.
For us, however, the king in Edinburgh was no master at all. How could we, ever, bow to a foreigner who wanted to make us his vassals? How could we, ever, bow to those who mocked us, who called us savages?
We fought with Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, but we fought as his allies, not as his servants. The Lowlanders were free to adopt the English laws of barons and earls, but our people had been here, in these glens and upon these isles, long before feudal titles were even envisaged by those from the south.
No, we would keep to our path. We would stay to our ways, to the moulds that formed us. No matter how many ships the king commanded, no matter how many serfs he could force into battle, he knew the truth: The Kingdom of Scotland, the kingdom he now claimed for himself, came about only because the Gaels had unified all Scots under a Highland sovereign.
We did not owe respect to him. He owed respect to us.
For the MacDonald chiefs were the leaders of the Gaels, the heirs to Somerled’s country. They were called the Kings of the Hebrides by all, the Lords of the Isles, and throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, they controlled much more land than all the other Highland chiefs put together. Within Britain, only the kings of England and Scotland could claim more.
At Finlaggan, upon the island of Islay, the Lords of the Isles had their capital. There the Council of the Isles deliberated and resolved disputes. There Lord MacDonald granted charters and entertained guests in his Great Hall. A well-defended order prevailed throughout the lands of the Lordship, and poems and music attained new strengths. These were revered: The keener lines of the bards, a harp’s muting strums, the pipes’ breaking roar. Monks, too, praised and warned in pen strokes, and the artists rendered their filigree in gold.
Through courage, not courtiers’ documents, the Lordship grew so widely that its branches nearly became clans of their own. Soon, besides the MacDonalds of Glen Coe, there were the MacDonalds of Glen Garry, of Clan Ranald, of Keppoch, and others.
Yet the Lowland kings of Scotland refused to accept that we should rule ourselves. They insisted that our land and our homes belonged to them, and so they pressed on into our country. With promises of power and money, they persuaded several other clans, not just the Campbells, to oppose us.
Our realm remained at its full strength, however, until 1475, when James III learned that John, Lord of the Isles, had allied himself with the Earl of Douglas, a Lowlander, to conquer Scotland and divide the country between the two of them. James used this alleged treason to full effect, rallying others to his cause, a
nd John agreed to relinquish much of his territories upon the mainland of Scotland.
Still, our people chafed at John’s meek submission; a leader who would bow, like that, is no leader at all. Many came out in support of John’s son Angus, who rebelled against his father and campaigned to take back the lost lands. Now the Highlands and Isles erupted into a civil war. In 1484, or nearly then, Angus’ forces met those of his father John at the Battle of Bloody Bay, off of the coast of the Isle of Mull. Angus was victorious, and took leadership of Clan Donald, but so many were killed on both sides, with much of the clan’s fleet lying still beneath the waves.
Angus continued to lead the MacDonalds against the king, but we were weakened, hopelessly, by that war between father and son. After Angus was murdered in 1490, the new king, James IV, seized the title of Lord of the Isles. In 1493 and again in 1495, James sailed with his army to the Isles, where all of the Clan Donald chiefs paid homage to him.
All of the chiefs, that is, except for one: MacIain of Glen Coe.
Over the next several years, the king showed the other MacDonalds what rewards they would receive for their peaceable submission; he carved up Clan Donald lands and handed them over to his servants. Archibald Campbell, chief of his clan and recently minted Earl of Argyll, was appointed Royal Lieutenant over the lands that once had been the Lordship of the Isles. He received a lease of most of the Lordship’s territories.
Only about fifteen years earlier, Archibald’s sister had married Angus MacDonald, the victor at Bloody Bay, and she had given birth to a single boy, Donald, who had been recognised by all as the future Lord of the Isles. But Archibald’s father, Colin Campbell, seeing what this baby could mean, had prevailed upon one of the king’s close cousins to steal into Finlaggan, abduct the boy from his mother, and deliver him to Colin, his own grandfather.
Thus, when King James IV seized the Lordship of the Isles in 1493, he knew that the only heir to the Lordship was a boy, Donald, sitting in a prison at the Campbell stronghold of Innis Chonnel Castle. The master of that castle, Archibald, the Royal Lieutenant, soon turned his attention to the one clan that had refused to submit. In 1500, he went to his king and obtained a decree stating that the MacDonalds of Glen Coe should be evicted from our lands, and that Campbell should be free to people our home with anyone he wished.
My fathers learned of the decree, and, of course, decided this: They would walk deep into Campbell country on their own, attempt to break into a jail guarded by the Earl of Argyll’s soldiers, and bring back Donald.
They gathered beside the River Coe, with the greater waters on the horizon. Their families did not weep. MacEanruig began piping. Now they followed MacIain south, toward Innis Chonnel, and I am certain that our bard told them:
When you pass beneath the last of the Three Sisters, think of the red stag upon the slope of Coire Gabhail. When you find high Buachaille Etive Mòr disappearing behind you, think of the ferns that remain under icy Sgorr nam Fiannaidh. The Campbell may throw you down, far from our burial isle, but your children will always know of this sun. Without daring, you are nothing.
It took a number of days before the events were known, and the initial reports were met with disbelief. But within a few days, many in the Highlands and the Isles had heard, and they said it to one another.
The MacDonalds of Glen Coe have rescued the Lord of the Isles. He is alive. Now he is protected, and the Islesmen are waiting for the word.
The rebellion has begun.
CHAPTER 15
DEAR MR.
MACDONALD
Just two days after leaving Missouri, I was at my computer in New York, looking for my ancestors John McDonald and Elizabeth Downing, parents of my great-great-great-great-grandpa Hiram McDonald. But now there was this email from Mark MacDonald, the head of the Clan Donald DNA Project. Colin MacDonald was one of the three MacDonalds who matched Chuck, Grandma’s brother, and Mark wrote this:
“Colin is from New Zealand, where he has been very active in Clan Donald affairs. Although he is not of paternal Somerled descent, he is currently proceeding before the Lord Lyon with either the tacit (or, I believe, the active) support of the remaining chiefs to be recognized as chief of the Glencoe branch. I have never personally reviewed his paperwork but I understand that he has excellent documentation of his descent from the youngest son of the chief in 1745.”
The Lord Lyon Court of Arms is the authority under Scottish law for deciding who should be recognized as the chief of a clan, and it only took a moment to remember what Bryan Sykes had said on the Isle of Skye. A chief had always been decided in exactly the same way a Y-chromosome is passed down—from father to son, and then from father to son, and then again from father to son.
Uncle Chuck had the DNA signature of the chiefs of the MacDonalds of Glencoe.
Just like the Clan Donald chiefs who sent in their cheek swabs to Sykes, Uncle Chuck and Colin had the same signature because they were both descended from a single, paternal line. I had to map this out, though, and within a few minutes, I found a Clan Donald site that had a Glencoe family tree on it, and I was able to match it up with what Mark’s email said about Colin’s line.
I began with Iain Fraoch, the first chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and clicked on his son, also named Iain, and then clicked on his son Iain. And that took me to another clickable son Iain, and then another: There were eight Glencoe chiefs named Iain, from the 14th century into the late 16th. But now there was an Alasdair, and beginning with him, the clicks said this:
There was a footnote attached to Donald, the youngest brother of Alexander, and it read: “By tradition this line in males exists to the present day, possibly to Colin MacDonald of Canterbury, New Zealand.” The chiefship had passed to Alexander and then to his son, but the chiefs’ DNA signature had passed down to Donald, too, and to Donald’s sons, and then to all of Donald’s patrilineal descendants—even though none of them had ever been chief, and even though some of them emigrated to New Zealand.
And the same thing must have happened with my family. Uncle Chuck and Colin shared an ancestor, but in the generation after that shared ancestor, there’d been a split, with one brother leading down to my McDonald line and another brother leading down to Colin’s line. The few DNA markers that Chuck and Colin didn’t share were the signs of mutations that had occurred over the generations since that brotherly split.
Just when did the split happen? My ancestor John must have been born before 1790 or so, because his son Hiram was born in 1806, so John could have been the son or grandson or maybe even the great-grandson of Colin’s ancestor Donald, who was born in the late 1690s or early 1700s. I didn’t know anything about Donald’s children or grandchildren, so for all I knew, Donald could have had descendants who ended up in Missouri.
But the DNA hinted at something else. Uncle Chuck matched Colin on 34 out of 37 markers, which meant that their most recent common ancestor—the father right above the brotherly split—was probably further back in the past. They were a close match, but not that close. The three mismatched markers said that Chuck and Colin’s most recent common ancestor was probably born in the 16th or 17th centuries, not the 18th.
I went back to that genealogy of the Glencoe chiefs from the Clan Donald site. Even if my John wasn’t descended from Colin’s ancestor Donald, he was probably descended from one of the chiefs who appeared above Donald. Was my John descended from the 13th chief, also named John? Or did my line break from the chiefly line earlier, with a younger brother of the 12th chief, or the 10th, or the 5th?
The DNA couldn’t answer that question just yet, but I knew one thing already: If Chuck and Colin’s signature was the signature of the Glencoe chiefs, then the official history was about to change.
According to that history, the first Glencoe chief, Iain Fraoch, was the son of Angus Og, the ally of Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. So, the story
went, all the Glencoe chiefs from Iain Fraoch onward, all the MacIains, were patrilineal descendants of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, and the MacDonald bards passed on this history, generation to new generation, until the books in English said it, too.
But Bryan Sykes had discovered that all of the living Clan Donald chiefs had the DNA signature of Somerled, the 12th century king who’d passed his lands and genes down to Angus Og, and I already knew that Chuck and Colin didn’t have the Somerled signature. When Sykes wrote to those chiefs, he was writing to men whose families had held onto their lands and their titles for centuries. The last Glencoe chief, though, passed away long ago, and so there was no chance for Sykes to write to some titled MacIain gentleman and receive an eager cheek swab in the mail, and so Sykes never had to figure out just how to say:
It appears that there has been some sort of non-paternity event.
My ancestors weren’t patrilineal descendants of Somerled, but they were treated as though they had been, every moment, every year. And so the real patriarch was hiding. His name was unknown, and his story had been left unsaid, or perhaps it had been quietly silenced because he was inconvenient to the clan. But his DNA was showing itself suddenly, and we knew his numbers.
Now I wanted to email Colin, or call him, or swim to New Zealand. His family records could say something about John McDonald, the father of my ancestor Hiram. I signed back into Chuck’s personal page at the DNA company site and looked for Colin’s email address, but the address listed was for Mark, the head of the Clan Donald DNA Project. Maybe Colin didn’t use email, or he didn’t want distant cousins to contact him.
Reunion: A Search for Ancestors Page 10
