Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 3

48 THE CELTIC MAGAZmE.
historical records show that, imtil the forfeiture of the Lords of the Isles,
the Mackenzies held their lands from the Earls of Eoss, and invariably-
followed their banner in the field.
The first Chief of the Clan Kenneth who is known with any degree of
certainty in history is Murdoch, son of Kenneth of Kintail, the " Murdo
filius Kennethi de Kintail" aheady referred to as having obtained a
charter from David II. as early as the year 1 362, and that he lived about
this time is confirmed by the IMS. of 1450 ; for the last two generations
named in it are found to be " Muiread ic Cainig," or ^lurdoch the son of
Kenneth, after which it proceeds, as we have already seen — " Kenneth
son of John, son of Kemieth, son of Angus, &c. ; whereas the genealogy
given in all our Peerages and by aU our family historians would read —
"Murdoch son of Kenneth, son of Kenneth, son of Kenneth, son of Colin."
The only difterence will be found in those names printed in italics.
In Skene's genealogy, from the MS. of 1450, we find Angus represent-
ing Colin Fitzgerald in the other ; and John, a very common name
among the Mackenzies, doing duty for Kenneth in the family genealogy.
It would certainly appear strange (at any rate it is not of common occurrence)
to have three Kenneths in immediate succession in the family ; and the
probabilities are in favour of the Gaelic genealogy, which gives us a John
between two of the Kenneths ; and as for Colin we think he has been
already prett}'- satisfactorily disposed of as having had no connection
with the family.
When mere tradition was the only authority to be depended upon, one
Kenneth, more or less, could make no serious difierence to those who,
from time to time, recited the traditional family genealogy, so, on the
whole, and considering all the^ros and cons, we prefer the written authority,
which gives a Kenneth and a Jolin alternately, to the mere traditional
record, which is so lavish with that from which the family name is derived
as to supply us with three in immediate succession.
The craze for a foreign origin, which all the best authorities admit to
have been almost universal anlong the Highland genealogists during the
seventeenth century — which was indeed the creation of that period — and
with which the Earl of Cromarty, the Laird of Applecross, and Dr George
Mackenzie have been so strongly saturated, would not afi'ect, in any
material degree, their records of the general history of the Clan, beyond
what was necessary to make it fit in Avith the Irish origin which they
first brought into being, and stoutly maintained all along ; and we shall,
therefore, in giving the history of the various chiefs of Clan Kenneth,
in addition to the information and difi"erent views which are founded
on the results of modern historical research, draw upon a copy of the Laird
of Applecross's MS., and others in our possession, in which the above-
named genealogists and family historians are largely quoted.
We shall proceed with the History and Genealogies of the Chiefs of
Kintail and Seaforth in their order, beginning -\vith the first Kenneth,
he being the one from whom the Clan name is derived ; after which the
various offshoots, ]>egmning with the oldest cadet, wiH be treated, in the
same manner, in their order of seniority.
It may be well to explain, at the outset, how the Clan name came to