Earls of Cromartie > [NSLBLANK]

INTRODUCTION : ARMORIAL SEALS.
is corrupted by turning the wound to a star, and the blood to a tusk. 1
Engravings of two of the earliest armorial seals of the Mackenzies which
have been found are here given. These are the seals of Colin Mackenzie of
Kintail in 1585, and his son, Kenneth of Kintail, in 1597.
The royal hunt in the forest of Mar, and the incident of killing the stag
at the critical moment for King Alexander, form the subject of a large picture,
painted by Sir Benjamin West for Francis last Lord Seaforth. The painting
is on a large scale, one of the " immense sheets of canvas " on which that
eminent artist preferred to work. The canvas, indeed, nearly covers a wall
of the drawing-room of Brahan Castle. The original sketch for the painting
by the artist is also at Brahan.
For about a century after Colin Fitzgerald, little is known of the members of
the Mackenzie family. The charters next in date are one by King David the
Second in 1360, and another by King Eobert the Second in 1380, both granted
to Murdoch, the son of Kenneth of Kintail. The originals of these charters
are not now known to exist. But the terms of them, as quoted in the early
1 History MS., p. 3. Tusk is probably the Gaelic duiseag, a forelock.