History of the clan Mackenzie

4 HISTORY OF THE MACKENZIES;
remitted to him, to hold of the King of England, but failing
heirs male, it ultimately fell to Thomas Carron, who had
married his daughter. There was issue, only one daughter,
of this union, who married Thomas Fitzgerald, and who
had the seigniory of Desmond transferred to her in dowry.
She bore him one son, John, who married first, Marjory,
daughter of Sir Thomas Fitz-Antony, who bore him
Maurice, ancestor of the Duke of Leinster ; and secondly,
he married Honora, daughter of Hugh O'Connor, by whom
. he had six sons — Cailean, the reputed progenitor of the
Mackenzies ; Galen (said to be the same as Gilleon, or
Gillean, the ancestor of the Macleans of Mull), who fought
at the Battle of Largs, and died in 1300 ; Gilbert, ancestor of
the White Knights ; John, ancestor of the Knights of Glynn ;
Maurice, ancestor of the Knights of Kerry; and Thomas,
progenitor of the Fitzgeralds of Limerick.
It will be noticed, that although the name Gerald or
Gerard descends through the ancestors of "the family, begin-
ning with Gerald Fitz-Walter, it does not appear to have be-
come an established patronymic until a later period; but it
has been maintained that the ancestors of the Clan Mac-
kenzie were recognised in limine as "e Familia Geraldorum'.'
During the reign of Alexander II., several of the North
and* West Highland Chiefs were very powerful, and so
remote from the centre of Government that they could not
be subdued to the King's authority. To bring them to
subjection he determined to command an expedition in
person against Angus of Argyll, but he died, on his way
thither in 1249, leaving his son, Alexander III., only nine
years of age, with the full weight and responsibilities of the
Government of Scotland upon his shoulders. It is not, how-
ever, our present object to refer to Alexander's reign further
than is necessary to introduce Cailean Fitzgerald, the reputed
ancestor of the Clan Mackenzie to the reader, and to show
the manner in which he is said to have obtained possession
of Islandonain and the Lands of Kintail.
Driven from Ireland in 1262, Cailean is said to have
taken refuge at the Court of the youthful Scottish King, by