the early fifteenth century (after the
unjustified beheading of Duncan, the last earl of the House of Lennox by James I in 1425
for his relationship to the House of Albany). Afterwards, a family of the name of de
Levenax (later "Lennox"), a branch of the House of Lennox, settled in South
Galloway where they appear as early as 1508 as followers of the Earl of Cassilis and
acquired wide lands in Kirkcudbright (Lennox is also one of the name-titles of the
Gordon-Lennox dukes of Richmond, Lennox and Gordon, descendants of a natural son of
Charles II).
The MacFarlanes (Mac Pharlain) descend from
Parlan, whose great-grandfather Gilchrist of Arrochar was a younger son of Alwyn, Earl of
Lennox about 1200. On the death of Earl Duncan the chiefs of the MacFarlanes claimed to be
chiefs of the whole kindred of the House of Lennox, as heirs-male to their kinsmen the
earls. The earldom was granted to the Stewarts of Darnley, as mentioned, and the district
was consolidated by the marriage of the MacFarlanes’ then chief, Andrew MacFarlane of
Arrochar, to a daughter of the new earl. Their son, Sir lain MacFarlane, used the
old-style chiefly title of Captain of Clann Pharlain, and led the warlike clan under the
Earl of the Lennox at the battle of Flodden in 1513. The MacFarlanes were described by a
contemporary as "men of the head of Lennox, that spake the Irish and the
English-Scottish tongues, light footmen, well armed in shirts of mail, with bows and
two-handed swords" (Moncrieffe 139). The MacFarlanes had island strongholds in upper
Loch Lomond, while the chief’s residence was the primitive house at Arrochar on the
shore of Loch Long.
The Buchanans (Canonach) take their name from
the barony of Buchanan on the eastern side of Loch Lomond. They were an ecclesiastical
family devoted to St. Kettigern, their Gaelic patronymic being MacAuslan (Mac Absalon),
from a local ecclesiastic of the early thirteenth century. Sir Absalon of Buchanan (buth
chanain, "house of the canon") appears in the early thirteenth century as the
temporal lord of what were probably recently secularized church-lands (see
page 106). As Absalon son of Macbeth, he was granted the island of Clarinch opposite
Buchanan by the Earl of Lennox in 1225. There is a family tradition connecting the
Buchanans with Moray, or at least the Moray area. Both the name "Macbeth," and
the original Buchanan arms of "three bears heads," could indicate a connection
of their ecclesiastical line with the family known as "of the Aird" (see page 56). In any case, as the then laird of Buchanan appears as
Steward of the Lennox in 1238, either he, or his father, probably married into the House
of Lennox, for stewartrys were reserved for younger branches of the earl’s family
(see under "Drummond" and in Chapter IV). In the early fifteenth century the
Buchanan chiefs married into the discouraged House of Albany (Stewarts), and thus became
the nearest lawful heirs of this house; hence the black royal "lyon" in the
Buchanan arms—a symbol of mourning.
Other branches of the House of Lennox include
the Leckies or Leckys of |
