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IT is a far cry from Glenlyon to
Glengarry, and
there never had been race or historical connections,
or even much direct communication between the
two places; yet there was deep and general sorrow
in Glenlyon when the debt-burdened property of
the Macdonells had to be sold, and an English
lord bought the chief part of it which, however, he
afterwards resold to a worthy Scotsman, "although"
this is how the Highlanders qualified their praise
of him "he had the misfortune to be a Lowlander."
When the landless Chief was making his preparations for emigrating to Australia, with a portion
of his people, his proceedings were watched with
exceeding interest every drover, pedlar, and travelling tinker or beggar from the north being closely
questioned about him. On his departure, he and
his party had the good wishes of all their Celtic
countrymen. The news of their arrival in Australia
and the welcome they got there excited hopes of
success at home, which, while not totally realised,
were not totally disappointed. Glengarry's emigration, with wooden huts and tents ready to be put
up on landing, and with a company of clansfolk,
caused Highland emigrants, including a batch from
Glenlyon, to go to Australia instead of taking the
customary route to Canada, or the United States.
The collapse of the Glengarry house was
throughout all the Highlands felt to be a whole
race calamity. The Seaforth earls, Chiefs of the
Mackenzies, had passed away a little earlier, and
the remnant of their property which was not sold
went to the heir by the spindle side, who, although
he claimed to do so, could not on clan principles
inherit the chiefship. But Ross-shire was not left
without many important landed proprietors of the
house of Kintail. There was no such compensation
in regard to the disappearance of the Macdonells,
a main branch of the Somerled tree from Glengarry.
That disappearance was like the fall of a fixed star
from the Celtic firmament. It turned war-songs
and proud piobaireachd into hollow mockeries or
pathetic laments, and took the pith out of the oral
traditions. The Huntly Seton-Gordons, who, as
Earls of Huntly and Dukes of Gordon, figure so
largely in the history of Scotland from 1400 down-
wards, had wide possessions in the Highlands, and
succeeded through marriage to give one of their
off-shoots the Earldom of Sutherland. Able and
ambitious as these Seton-Gordons were, and anxious as they were at times to
act as Highland chiefs, and readily as they were taken for such at Court and
in the Lowlands, they never in Highland opinion levelled themselves up to
equality with a Macdonell of Glengarry, or a Cameron of Lochiel, or
even a Keppoch Chief, who was only their tenant. The Duke of Gordon who died
in 1836 was genuinely popular in the Highlands, for had he not by his
mother's effective if unscrupulous method of recruiting raised the glorious
92nd or Gordon Highlanders? It was the minister of Fortingall's son,
Sir .Robert Macara, who commanded that regiment
when Napoleon escaped from Elba, and he fell as a
noble warrior should fall, resisting Ney's charge at
Quatre Bras. If not the fighting, the Duke of
Gordon was the ornamental colonel of the 92nd,
and on it he spent much care and money. This
kindly man and generous landlord was the last of
his race. Our Glenlyon men of age, who were wise
and deep in traditional lore, while speaking very
kindly of the last Duke of Gordon, did not regret
his being the last, seeing that his heir and successor
was a Stuart, and bar-sinister descendant of Charles
II. Later on their calmness was disturbed by the
sale to an Englishman of the lordship of Lochaber,
and Inverlochy Castle and the estate attached to it.
Transfers of properties by sales or devolution on
female line heirs who were strangers and had residences elsewhere, furnished our aged sages of all
surnames with causes of mourning and with auguries
of evil to come. They were all admirers of the state
of peace which was established throughout the
Highlands within twenty years after Culloden. As
soon as the forfeited estates were restored they
thought good rule could be carried on for ever by
Church and landlords working together in harmony,
and truly between 1780 and 1830 that co-operation
of the spiritual and secular powers was strongly in
evidence and produced excellent results. But in
course of time the lairds or smaller barons, who were
the essential links for connecting the high aristocracy
with the classes below, displayed inability to keep
their footing. Main lines died out and side line
successors had neither their knowledge nor sympathies. Other most popular families of small estates
failed to live within their incomes, and their estates,
on coming to be sold, were bought by strangers who
might do temporary good by spending money on
improvements, but who could not, in one generation
at least, be such leaders of the people on their land
as their impoverished predecessors had been. I
question if any landowner in the southern Highlands
could make out a longer claim for his own and his
ancestors' possession of the same lands than Francie
Mor Mac an Aba. But most of the lairds who were
his contemporaries and neighbours or acquaintances,
had two centuries of possessory history and had
consequently acquired the position of natural leaders.
This was not a position which in old Highland days
could be gained in one generation by strangers.
There was a curious form of stability in the seemingly
hopeless instability of the times of ancient feuds,
broils, rebellions and forfeitures; for the next up-
set usually resettled what the previous one had
unsettled. |
