Class, 
 
 Book . /ly/T/ S 
 
ARRAN OF THE BENS 
 THE GLENS AND THE BRAVE 
 
j^emMSHk 
 
 '$kt' 
 
GOAT FELL FROM THE ROAD 
 BETWEEN LAMLASH AND BRODICK 
 
 From a j>ainting by 
 J. LAIVTON IVINGATE, R.S.A. 
 
ARRAN OF THE BENS 
 
 THE GLENS ^ THE BRAVE 
 
 BY MACKENZIE MACBRIDE, F.S.A/SCOT.) 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY 
 
 J. LAWTON WINGATE, R.S.A. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 EDINBURGH : T. N. FOULIS 
 I 9 I I 
 
Printed in Great Brita\ 
 
 
 ,^ 
 
 *^ffJ:j^<? 
 
 IX—' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE CHARM OF ARRAN 
 
 CHAF. PAGE 
 
 I. The Charm of Arran .... 3 
 II. The Land between Sky and Water . 8 
 
 THE HOLY ISLAND 
 
 III. Arran's Romances . . . .12 
 
 KING ROBERT BRUCE — CROMWELL AND 
 ARRAN 
 
 PART II 
 HISTORICAL REMAINS 
 
 IV. Arran's Ancient Chapels . . .21 
 
 KILBRIDE — KILMORY — SHISKEN CHAPEL 
 — SANNOX CHAPEL — GLEN ASHDALE 
 CHAPEL 
 
 V. Arran's Castles . . . . .27 
 
 BRODICK CASTLE — LOCHRANZA CASTLE — THE 
 GEOLOGY OF ARRAN 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 VI. The Caves of Arran . . . .31 
 
 FINGAL'S CAVE — THE PREACHING CAVE 
 AT KILPATRICK — THE WONDROUS BAUL 
 OF SAINT MULUY 
 
 PART III 
 
 ARRAN IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 VII. Arran in the Eighteenth Century . 40 
 
 THE OLD RUNRIG SYSTEM — JOHN BURRELL 
 — HIS SCHEME OF IMPROVEMENT — THE 
 GREAT REVOLUTION — SMUGGLING IN 
 ARRAN — FAMOUS ARRAN PREACHERS — 
 THE ARRAN EVICTIONS — WHAT PENNANT 
 SAW— ARRAN AND THE FORTY-FIVE 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE BRANDANI 
 
 VIII. Old Families in Arran . . .69 
 
 THE arran and BUTE BARONS 
 
 IX. The Brandanes . . . .76 
 
 OR, men OF ARRAN AND BUTE 
 
 X. The Language of Arran . . . 8i 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GAELIC 
 dictionary : WILLIAM SHAW — DANIEL 
 
 MACMILLAN 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 PART V 
 OUR EARLY ANCESTORS IN ARRAN 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XI. Arran's Wealth of Prehistoric Remains 91 
 
 THE ETHNOLOGY OF ARRAN 
 
 XII. Ancient Forts and Camps . . .103 
 
 DRUMADOON — TOR CAISTEAL — GLEN ASH- 
 DALE — KING'S CROSS — DUN FION— CRAIG 
 NA CUIROCH — TORNANSCHIAN 
 
 PART VI 
 
 ARRAN— THE BATTLE-GROUND OF 
 THE VIKING AGE 
 
 XIII. Arran in the Viking Age . . -113 
 
 THE christians OF lONA — THE VALE OF 
 
 shisken and machrie moor 
 
 XIV. The Arran Men at the Battle of Brun- 
 
 anburh ..... 126 
 
 THE fleet in LAMLASH BAY — MAGNUS 
 BAREFOOT 
 
 XV. Somerled, THE Hammer OF THE Norsemen 136 
 
 XVI. How King Hakon fought at Largs . 145 
 
 XVII. King Hakon at Lamlash . . .154 
 
 PART VII 
 
 THE DAYS OF WALLACE 
 
 XVIII. The Great War of Independence . -159 
 
 THE battle of STIRLING BRIDGE — THE 
 BRANDANES AT THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK 
 — HOW THE BRANDANES COVERED THE 
 RETREAT — THE BRANDANES AT PERTH — 
 EDWARD'S VENGEANCE 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PART VIII 
 
 HOW THE ARRAN MEN SHELTERED 
 KING ROBERT BRUCE 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XIX. The Ambush at Brodick Castle . . 189 
 
 BRUCE AND THE SPIDER — THE RED LIGHT 
 ON TURNBERRY BEACON — THE BRANDANES 
 AT BANNOCKBURN 
 
 PART IX 
 
 WHAT THE BRANDANES DID FOR 
 THE STEWARTS 
 
 XX. What the Brandanes did for the 
 
 Stewarts .... 207 
 
 the battle of the stones — the 
 steward's escape from rothesay 
 castle — the king's bodyguard — the 
 battles of william the lyon and 
 the disaster at pinkie 
 
 PART X 
 
 THE LATER LORDS OF ARRAN 
 
 XXI. The Later Lords of Arran . 221 
 
 THE BOYDS — THE HAMILTONS — " LADY 
 MARY " 
 
ILLUSTRAT I ONS 
 
 Reproduced from Oil Paintings by 
 J. LAWTON WINGATE, R.S.A. 
 
 goatfell from the road between 
 Lamlash and Brodick . 
 
 Sunset at Mouth of the Machrie 
 
 AiLSA Craig and Pladda Lighthouse 
 from Kildonan . 
 
 Lochranza and Castle 
 
 Old Bridge : North Glen Sannox 
 
 Corn Cutting 
 
 Old Arran Houses, Whiting Bay 
 
 Harvesting — Tormore 
 
 Caisteal Abhail 
 
 The Edge of the Shisken Moor 
 
 Drumadoon Bay 
 
 The Old Pier, Lamlash, and the Holy 
 Island .... 
 
 Clouds moving over a Moor : Ben Ard 
 ven in Distance 
 
 Grey Cloudland : Sound of Kilbrannan 
 
 Whiting Bay from the Kildonan Road 
 
 The Approach of Night — Over the 
 Sound of Kilbrannan . 
 
 Frontispiece 
 Page 8 
 
 ,, i6 
 
 / 
 
 24/^ 
 
 40 
 
 56^- 
 
 72 
 
 y 
 
 104 -' 
 120 
 136 ' 
 
 152 
 
 168 
 
 / 
 
 184 ^ 
 ... / 
 
 „ 216 
 
ARRAN 
 
 " Here, as of old, the dreaming hours fulfil 
 Their ancient pledge, and flower in sunlit days 
 Above thy pastoral slopes and wave-washed bays 
 Where melody and colour merge and thrill. 
 Thy chosen Priestess, Beauty, beckons still 
 From whin-clad straths and heather-haunted ways, 
 Or lies in wait along the scented braes. 
 Or chains a leafy thought from hill to hill. 
 
 Bruce found a shelter, lovely Isle, in thee 
 When o'er his head the cloud of menace rolled, 
 He saw thy rock-strewn mountains tipped with gold 
 When morning mounted sovran from the sea. 
 And on thy bosom, fold on misty fold. 
 Beheld her dew-stained garments floating free." 
 
 Ferdinand E. Kappey. 
 
PART I 
 THE CHARM OF ARRAN 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE CHARM OF ARRAN 
 
 Both the stranger and the native find some- 
 thing peculiarly alluring in Arran ; and, though 
 it is but a small island of twenty odd miles 
 by seven, and the world is a large place, few 
 who have known it fail to keep it amongst 
 their cherished remembrances. I know an 
 artist who has visited it regularly for forty 
 years, and who starts again this autumn with 
 a full programme of work already mapped out, 
 and he would be the first to admit that much 
 of his best work he owes to the pastoral 
 loveliness and fine atmospheric effects so 
 notable in the south of Arran. There are 
 many, too, who, after thirty or forty years 
 spent in the busiest cities, have been glad to 
 turn their steps to their native island ; others 
 there are who, in the full tide of manhood, 
 
4 ARRAN 
 
 have forsaken the excitements of America 
 and AustraHa and come home to settle in 
 the smallest of villages close by Kilbrannan 
 Sound. Paterson, a Lowlander, writing in 
 1 834, says: "That the Highlandersof Scotland 
 feel the love of country very strongly is unques- 
 tionable ; and that it has a beneficial effect on 
 their moral conduct is as certain. The dread 
 of being expelled from Arran has more 
 efficacy in restraining those of its inhabitants 
 who may be inclined to dishonest, vicious, or 
 idle courses, than all the penal laws in force." 
 What, then, is it that Arran holds that is so 
 great an attraction ? It is probably no one 
 thing : the wonderful beauty of the Brodick 
 lanes, with their views of Goatfell's great 
 peak varied in character daily, nay sometimes 
 hourly, but always lovely and commanding ; 
 the sweet scent of the surrounding woods, 
 fir and birch, myrtle and heath, and of the 
 hundred and one wild flowers of Arran, 
 all lend their subtle contributions. But, in- 
 deed, the whole of the great groups of hills 
 which stretch across the centre of the island, 
 ranging in height from the 2866 feet of Goat- 
 
THE CHARM OF ARRAN 5 
 
 fell to 600 or 800 feet in the southern district, 
 have qualities which are rare. It would be 
 difficult to find in a small space, even in Skye 
 of the Mists or Mull of the Bens, mountains 
 as weird, black, titanic as the Devil's Punch 
 Bowl or Cioch nan h'oige (the Maiden's 
 Breast), which alters so swiftly, mystically ; 
 now almost invisible, merged in the surround- 
 ing peaks, now a mere cone leaning obliquely 
 southward ; while now, seen from Sannox 
 moor, it stands up threateningly, overwhelm- 
 ingly, right above you. Nor in all the hills of 
 the west can there be found anything so like 
 an enchanted fortress of the Arabian Nights 
 as the wonderful Caisteal Abhail (Casteel 
 Aval), crowning its huge granite crag over 
 sheer black precipices nearly three thousand 
 feet below. And this is not all, for the great 
 hill at the back, Ceum na Cailleach, is formed 
 in the same cyclopean spirit, and its fantastic 
 pinnacles seem to tell of further batdements 
 beyond for those to climb who would attempt 
 the strongholds of the gods. And there 
 again, to the left of wonderful Sannox glen, 
 stands Cir Mhor, aloft, aloof, filling up in 
 
6 ARRAN 
 
 solitary grandeur the space between Caisteal 
 Abhail and Cioch nan h'oige. Where can we 
 see anything as strange and fantastical as this 
 group approached from Sannox glen ? 
 
 But, of course, it may be seen from many 
 parts of the island, nay, it is difficult to lose, 
 it is everywhere, much as the Paps of Jura 
 Island are visible over half the Kintyre coast, 
 or the Goatfell group are everywhere with us 
 when we journey in southern Arran or on the 
 coast of Ayr and Renfrew. Mr. Lawton Win- 
 gate gives us a charming distant view of this 
 range, for instance, from Largybeg ; and a 
 mountain climber, Mr. Stewart Orr, has sat 
 lovingly close to the heart of the hills through 
 dark nights in order to give us his pictures of 
 their more intimate and undiscovered moods 
 when flushed with the rosy colours of the 
 dawn. 
 
 Certainly much of the charm of Arran arises 
 from the presence of this stately concourse ; 
 but they are not all the hills the island boasts. 
 Am Bhinnean in the same neighbourhood has 
 many moods, and looks down upon us, from 
 above the white cottages and stretch of wood 
 
THE CHARM OF ARRAN 7 
 
 on the Corrie shore, with all the dignity and 
 splendour of a Sultan. 
 
 The Cuchullin range in Skye, though it has 
 the upright peaks, lacks the grand horizontal 
 lines like that of Suidhe-Feargus, which at 
 Sannox are so finely symmetrical, and group 
 so superbly round that solemn and inspiring 
 spot. 
 
 The next view in point of grandeur is 
 perhaps that of Goatfell towering up over the 
 woods of Brodick Castle, seen from the cross 
 roads, and along the Corrie shore as far as 
 Ard na Beithe (point of the birch trees). The 
 view, especially on a grey and sultry day, so 
 subtly Oriental in suggestion, so wide, so do- 
 minated by the bare outline of the great cone 
 rising out of the beech woods and pastures, 
 cannot be equalled in the West Highlands for 
 its power of capturing the senses, save perhaps 
 in the approach to Benmore from the Holy 
 Loch in Cowal, or the view of the Paps of 
 Glencoe from Ballachulish. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LAND BETWEEN SKY AND WATER 
 
 Merrily rocks the boat, 
 The Bell-buoy tosses and twirls, 
 
 And the bubbles that shoreward float 
 Are as full of colour as pearls. 
 
 AH the hues of the prism they show — 
 I The glitter of crimson dyes, 
 
 The orange of sunset glow, 
 And the purple of morning skies. 
 
 The sands are a silver sheet, 
 And the waves a revel of light. 
 
 Where motion and music meet. 
 And colour and form unite. 
 
 From the black cliffs perilous steeps. 
 The grass in the gale swings free ; 
 
 The sea in the sunlight leaps, 
 
 And the great clouds dip to the sea. 
 
 David Gow. 
 
 Who again has not, like Mr. David Gow, 
 felt the spell of Arran's waters, sparkling and 
 flashing with a million white crests, breaking 
 
THE LAND BETWEEN SKY AND WATER 9 
 
 sharp and clear as crystals on rock and shingle, 
 or rolling creamily like liquid amber on some 
 smooth stretch of pink-white sand. Its seas, 
 too, have a thousand shades of green, from 
 fairest olive to deepest emerald ; its burns a 
 thousand tones of brown, from that of a dark 
 cairngorm stone to the yellow of a cornelian. 
 And just so the mists and distances vary in 
 shades of grey and blue as delicate as that of 
 the mantle of Queen Maev herself, famous in 
 Keltic story. The passing shower or the 
 passing cloud coming down from the narrow 
 seas to northward, or up over Pladda and Ailsa 
 Craig ; or the storm-wind from the Atlantic 
 that breaks on the shores of her old kinsman 
 in legend and in blood, Kintyre ; all these 
 reflect jewellery of rare colours upon Arran 
 seas and burns and hills. Lying prone be- 
 tween sky and water, it vibrates and reflects 
 like a sensitive maid all the moods of nature 
 — smiles, storms, tears. Certainly if it is 
 monotony that kills, then one should live 
 longest in Arran, changeful as sweet seventeen 
 herself, least monotonous of lands. There 
 Nature's hand never stays, is never idle. Com- 
 
lo ARRAN 
 
 pare it to an Italian coast, where she dawdles 
 and languishes under a sky of perpetual blue 
 and a blazing sun. East is not more remote 
 from west, or north from south, or the 
 gorgeous wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba 
 from that of a London scullery-maid. 
 
 THE HOLY ISLAND 
 
 Another of Arran's charms is certainly cast 
 by the Holy Island in the famous bay of 
 Lamlash. There gathered the fleet that 
 fought the Saxon King Athelstan at the 
 great battle of Brunanburh, made famous in 
 the finest of early English poems ; there 
 too, many centuries later, came Hakon of 
 Norway with his ships, which, tempest aided, 
 the Scottish king defeated utterly. Thus 
 Arran was made the scene of the last act in 
 the Norse incursions on the western coast, as it 
 not improbably had been of the first, for it 
 must have tempted all comers by its exposed 
 position and the wealth of the industrious 
 plain of Shisken and Machrie. To the Holy 
 Island came also St. Molios, who lived in 
 
THE LAND BETWEEN SKY AND WATER n 
 
 the cave associated with his name, on the 
 walls of which have been deciphered some 
 runic characters. These were once held to 
 refer to Nicolas, a priest of Argyll ; but a 
 writer in The Book of Arran now states 
 that they refer to a prosaically named Norse- 
 man, possibly a mere trader, one Uilaeikr 
 Stallr ; much as the white stone which was 
 discovered by Mr. Pickwick was proved to 
 bear the words " Bill Stumps, his mark." 
 The island, like in shape to a lion couchant, 
 forms a most picturesque outpost to the 
 southern end of the great bay of Brodick. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ARRAN'S ROMANCES 
 
 Many races have left their mark on Arran, 
 have spilt their blood to hold it, have left their 
 romances behind upon its hill-tops and its 
 shores to redeem it from the commercialism of 
 our time. The men of the Stone Age, of the 
 Bronze period, the early Keltic period, did 
 each some little to emancipate it from bar- 
 barism, till the splendid Dalriadic colonists 
 came and finally broke its chains, making it 
 partaker for a time of the noblest civilisation 
 the world has yet known. But alas ! its 
 very wealth brought the Norse sea-rover who 
 destroyed all, all but the fighting, clannish 
 instinct of the " Kelt " which was to overcome 
 the Northman in the end, so that not one 
 fragment of all his conquests should remain 
 to him. Of course, it is always more easy 
 
ARRAN'S ROMANCES 13 
 
 to destroy than to create, and so a rough 
 hammer may shatter the Portland vase, a 
 rough sword the monastery of lona, and all 
 the promise of good that lay in Dalriada. 
 
 Arran was at that time no wilderness ; it 
 was only six miles distant from the capital of 
 a race who had been Christians for some 500 
 years, and whose blood it undoubtedly shared : 
 a race who were skilled in the arts as their 
 forbears in Ireland had been for centuries, 
 and possessed some of the learning and the 
 refinement which had made Ireland famous, 
 and attracted to her shores scholars from 
 every nation. The immense difference be- 
 tween them and the Norse intruders is 
 curiously illustrated in the following passage 
 from Mr, Henderson's Norse Influence on 
 Celtic Scotland — "The kindly temperament 
 of King Brian of Munster, heightened by his 
 belief probably, was noticeable to the Saga 
 writer, and I may adduce it as a parallel to 
 the softening influence which contact with 
 the West men sooner or later produced in the 
 fierce followers of Odin. ' He (Brian),' says 
 the Saga, ' was the best-natured of all kings ; 
 
14 ARRAN 
 
 thrice would he forgive all outlaws the same 
 offence before he had them tried by the law, 
 and from this it will be seen what a king he 
 must have been.' " 
 
 KING ROBERT BRUCE 
 
 Arran is also famous as the place where 
 Robert Bruce sought shelter when in hiding- 
 from the soldiers of Edward of England. 
 Tradition has it that to avoid his pursuers 
 he moved about the island, sheltering at one 
 time in the famous Kind's Cave at Drum- 
 adoon, and at another at the ancient pre- 
 historic fort in beautiful Glen Cloy, called 
 Tor na' shian, or Mound of the Fairies, from 
 which a view is obtained of the whole of the 
 glen. There, too, it is said, when hunted by 
 bloodhounds, he used to take exercise by 
 wading up and down the Glen Cloy burn at 
 High Glen Cloy, where it runs under the 
 fine woods of Kilmichael, the home of the 
 MacLouies or Fullartons. 
 
 Whether or not the name of Glenrickard, 
 which lies above the grounds of Kilmichael, 
 refers to the story of Bruce in Glen Cloy, I 
 
ARRAN'S ROMANCES 15 
 
 cannot say, but the name seems to have no 
 connection with the word " Rickard," as the 
 Ordnance Department seem to have supposed. 
 The pronunciation of a friend, who has lived 
 in the glen all his life of some sixty or more 
 years, is " Glenreegart," a name derived 
 probably from the Gaelic words glen and righ 
 and gar^, which give us the glen of the king's 
 sanctuary or enclosure. The name may, of 
 course, be of earlier origin than the time of 
 Bruce, and might have been acquired from 
 some legend invented to account for the great, 
 twenty feet long, chambered cairn in which 
 were buried our remote forbears, chiefs, and 
 kings. It is now a children's plaything. 
 
 " Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." 
 
 The site of the original Kilmichael house 
 was on the spot where Dr. Robertson- 
 Fullarton has erected his observatory, and the 
 ruins of Kilmichael Church were still visible 
 a little to the north-east of this spot, close 
 to the Glen Cloy burn, in Pennant's time. 
 
 Arran has also long been regarded as the 
 
i6 ARRAN 
 
 scene of the exploits of Fion (Fune) or Finn, 
 and many place names tell of him and his 
 followers, and of Ossian and Malvina. 
 Indeed, many persons have held that the 
 much disputed name, Arran, is from Ar Finn, 
 the land of Finn, while others state that it 
 is from Ar rinn, or land of the peaks ; but 
 the evidence seems insufficient to warrant 
 a decided judgment in favour of either of 
 these theories. It is clear that Fion and 
 Ossian never had an existence in actual fact, 
 but are of purely mythological origin, like the 
 greatGaelic legend in which theyfigure ; but so 
 strong was the influence of the old mythology 
 in the West at one time, and so saturated 
 were the Arran people with the legends of 
 the Feinne, that one is inclined to favour the 
 definition of Ar Finn. The name of the hill 
 Suidhe Feargus, in Glen Sannox, is that of 
 Fion's son, and its beautiful outline is well 
 worthy of the great romance linked with its 
 name. 
 

 
 
 ■':/V.^*hv"''il 
 
 
 
ARRAN'S ROMANCES 17 
 
 CROMWELL AND ARRAN 
 
 During the wars of Charles l the Hamiltons 
 stood for the King, but Brodick Castle was 
 held at different times by both parties, and 
 when the Earl of Stafford was about to reduce 
 the West of Scotland to obedience, Argyll, with 
 the Covenanters, took possession of Brodick. 
 In 1644 the Marquis was created Duke of 
 Hamilton for his services to Charles, but paid 
 for his loyalty with his head when the Par- 
 liament finally overthrew the King. The 
 Dutch ships were at that time hovering about 
 the Outer Hebrides, and Cromwell's govern- 
 ment had fear of them seizing the islands. 
 They therefore garrisoned Brodick, and built 
 the tower on the north-east side. The 
 islanders, however, were enraged at the 
 execution of their chief, and resented also the 
 rough manners of the soldiery, who insulted 
 their wives and daughters. They therefore 
 set a trap for them when they were out 
 foraging, and after chasing them along the 
 Corrie shore, caught them at Sannox, and 
 put them to the sword, the last being slain. 
 
i8 ARRAN 
 
 according to tradition, at the " Killing Stone," 
 on the Sannox shore. The next duke fought 
 and died for Charles ii. at Worcester, and 
 with him were present the islanders, together 
 with the other Highland clans. 
 
PART II 
 HISTORICAL REMAINS 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ARRAN'S ANCIENT CHAPELS 
 
 Most interesting of the old churches of 
 Arran is the little chapel of St. Bride at Lam- 
 lash, where rest the remains of many genera- 
 tions of Arran people. In old times, possibly 
 before the use of Kilbride graveyard, the 
 burial-ground on the Holy Island was also 
 popular as a burying-place. 
 
 KILBRIDE 
 
 In 1357 the churches of Kilbride and 
 Kilmory were given by the lord of Arran, 
 Sir John Menteith, to the monks of Kilmory, 
 with their chapels. The charter of King 
 David XL, confirming the gift, is of some 
 interest. It reads as follows — "To all the chil- 
 dren of the blessed Mother Church now living, 
 or yet to be born, who may see or hear these 
 
22 ARRAN 
 
 present writings, read : — John of Menteith, 
 lord of Arran and of Knapdale. Health in 
 the Lord for ever. Know that I for the 
 good of my soul, and that of Katherine my 
 late wife, and for the good of the souls of our 
 ancestors and successors, have given, granted, 
 and by this present charter of mine, confirmed 
 to God and the blessed Virgin Mary, to 
 good Wynnyn and to the monastery of 
 Kylwynne in Conyngham, to the abbots and 
 monks there worshipping God, and to those 
 who will worship him there for ever, the right 
 of presentation and patronage of the churches 
 of St. Mary and St. Bride in the island of 
 Arran, with their chapels, and with all other 
 properties which to the said churches, with 
 their chapels and lands, by right belong, to 
 be held and possessed by the said monastery 
 and monks for ever, with all rights belonging 
 to them in fee-simple, and perpetual alms." 
 
 In 1452 James 11. gave the crown lands 
 of Kilbride and Kilmory, which yielded an 
 annual rent of ^56, i8s. 8d., to the Canons of 
 Glasgow for a sum of eight hundred marks 
 which had been lent by them to the King. 
 
ANCIENT CHAPELS 23 
 
 In 1540 the lands had again come Into the 
 possession of the crown, and Kilbride was 
 then granted to Sir James Hamilton with 
 the Earldom of Arran. Innes says the 
 church stood originally on the north-west 
 shore of Lamlash bay, on the spot marked in 
 Blaeu's map " Marknaheglish." There are a 
 few sculptured stones of interest in the grave- 
 yard, but many more have been destroyed. 
 The most interesting and important was the 
 ancient cross, which for many years lay on 
 the family grave of the late Mr. John Mac- 
 Bride, who formerly farmed the Holy Island. 
 On the removal of the stones from the burial- 
 ground there he brought it to Kilbride. It 
 has been recently removed to the front of the 
 parish church at Lamlash. Stones of this 
 type were often erected in graveyards where 
 no church stood, to mark the sacred character 
 of the place. 
 
 KILMORY 
 
 Innes and the New Statistical Account 
 state that the old church of Kilmory stood 
 on the farm of Bennicarigan. The foundation 
 
24 ARRAN 
 
 stone showed a building of nineteen feet by 
 ten feet, and around it were some ancient 
 gravestones. The graveyard is still in use. 
 
 The church was granted to the monks of 
 Kilwinning in 1357, at which time Sir Bean 
 not "Saint Bean," as has been stated ("Sir" 
 was the ordinary title of a priest), was Rector. 
 Kilmory is supposed to have passed to the 
 Hamiltons in 1503. 
 
 The present church was built in 1785. 
 Kilmory Well was at one time famous on 
 account of its supposed miraculous healing 
 properties. 
 
 SHISKEN CHAPEL 
 
 The old chapel or cell of St, Molios stood 
 in the centre of the present graveyard, on the 
 spot now railed in as a grave by the Thomson 
 family. The famous sculptured figure, always 
 supposed to represent St. Molios, stood upon 
 this spot. Mr. Charles Mac Bride of Shedag, 
 who tested the place with a spade some time 
 ago, "came upon stone and lime," as he 
 cautiously puts it. This was probably part of 
 the foundation of the old chapel of the saint. 
 
m 
 
 m 
 
 iw° 
 
 mm 
 
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 i.VrHrZ--i>f-'l.i.y''L'''Xft'l'\~if'':^...:5''''iSi^?, 
 
ANCIENT CHAPELS 25 
 
 The sculptured stone has lately been built 
 into the wall of the neighbouring modern 
 church of St. Molios. It represents an abbot 
 with his pastoral staff, holding a chalice in his 
 hands. 
 
 The hamlet or clachan of St. Molios, which 
 grew up round his cell, stood on the site of 
 the now dismantled chapel of Kilmichael close 
 by. The position of the old graveyard and 
 ruined church at the entrance to the glen, with 
 the burn in the foreground, is one of the most 
 picturesque and truly old-world sights in 
 Arran. 
 
 SANNOX CHAPEL 
 
 Of Sannox Chapel there is no vestige left. 
 At the entrance of the beautifully situated 
 graveyard the figure of an ecclesiastic has 
 been built for safety into the stone dike. It is 
 supposed to represent the saint to whom the 
 chapel was dedicated. Even his name is not 
 quite certain, but the place is supposed to 
 have been dedicated to St. Michael, like so 
 many churches in the West Highlands. In 
 the graveyard were buried the remains of 
 
26 ARRAN 
 
 Edwin R. Rose, the young English tourist 
 who was so cruelly murdered by a stranger 
 named Laurie, on Goatfell, in July 1889. A 
 rouorh boulder-stone covers his orrave. 
 
 GLEN ASHDALE CHAPEL 
 
 There was once a chapel in Glen Ashdale, 
 in size about ten feet by twelve. Both chapel 
 and burial-ground are now almost indistin- 
 guishable, like that in Glen Cloy. There 
 were also chapels, as the names suggest, at 
 Kilbride Bennan, at Kilpatrick, at Balnacula 
 (St. Eoin's), at Auchengallon, at Lochranza 
 (St. Bride's), and at Kildonan. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ARRAN'S CASTLES 
 
 Of old Brodick Castle only one end, and the 
 stones used by the old builders and part of 
 the plan and outline, now remain. It has been 
 practically rebuilt many times, and was com- 
 pletely modernised in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. None the less, there are 
 few castles can compare with it in associations, 
 and fewer still have been taken and re-taken 
 as often as Brodick. In the re-building of 
 1844, referred to, a heavy tower was built up 
 on the remains of the old walls, and one 
 winter's night the tower fell with a tremendous 
 crash. Brodick's chief interest lies now in its 
 splendid position and its associations with a 
 hundred wild forays, with fire and with sword. 
 Among the keepers of Arran Castle have 
 
 been — 
 
 27 
 
28 ARRAN 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1296 Sir John Stewart of Menteith. 
 (about) 
 
 1305 Thomas Bisset of the Glens, in Ireland, and 
 (about) of Rathlin. 
 
 1306 Sir John Hastings. 
 
 1313 Sir John Stewart of Menteith. 
 
 1445 William Stewart (nephew of Robert 11.). 
 
 1488 Hugh, Lord Montgomery. 
 
 1526 George Tait. 
 
 1579 Ninian Stewart. 
 
 1586 Patrick Hamilton. 
 
 1588 Paul Hamilton. 
 
 LOCHRANZA CASTLE 
 
 One of the finest sights in the West High- 
 lands is the old royal castle of Lochranza, 
 standing, superbly set, on its narrow peninsula 
 of sand, with the water at its feet and the crags 
 above, and all the wealth of reds and browns 
 of the sea margin giving the place its wonder- 
 ful colouring. The cottages and hills and 
 distant view down Glen Chamadale add 
 another interest to a picture already wild and 
 lovely. 
 
 The castle, once a royal residence or hunt- 
 ing lodge, is now in ruins, though only one hun- 
 
CASTLES 29 
 
 dredand forty years ago it was seemingly quite 
 habitable. Its plan is that of a typical Scottish 
 castle, rather better than the mere peel tower. 
 On the first floor the hall measured some 74 ft. 
 by 23 ft., and was lit by three windows. The 
 floor was boarded, at any rate in later times. The 
 castle possessed the luxury of a kitchen, and 
 on the first floor was also another room. The 
 place is mentioned by Fordun in 1400. It was 
 given by John of Menteith to Duncan Camp- 
 bell of Lochawe in 1433, ^^^ ^^ ^445 was occu- 
 pied by Ronald MacAllister as Captain, at 
 which time he was also tenant of certain crown 
 lands in the island, for which he paid a rent of 
 /^i6, 6s. 8d., and twelve bolls of bear. As 
 Donal Balloch had about this time laid his 
 lands waste, MacAllister refused to pay his 
 rent. The castle and lands of Lochranza, 
 Cattadell, the two Tonregeys (now barbar- 
 ously called Thundergay), and other lands 
 were given by James 11. to Alexander, Lord 
 Montgomery. His grandson was created 
 Earl of Eglinton, and in 1488 was keeper of 
 Brodick Castle. In 1661 it was still in the 
 possession of the same family. In 1685 it 
 
30 ARRAN 
 
 passed to the Montgomeries of Skelmorlie, 
 and early in the next century passed to the 
 Hamiltons. 
 
 The chapel of St. Bride, mentioned by 
 Scott as possessing a convent, where dwelt 
 Isabel and the Maid of Lome, stood on 
 the beach, but not a trace now remains to 
 show the spot. 
 
 THE GEOLOGY OF ARRAN 
 
 Arran has been said to be in itself an epi- 
 tome of geology, and in that respect it is 
 unique. Briefly, the Devonian sandstone ex- 
 tends from the east to some five miles inland, 
 and from Brodick takes a turn to the south- 
 west. Trap-rock and carboniferous strata 
 occur in the west and centre of the island. 
 The central granite portion includes the great 
 hills of Goatfell, Cir Mhor and Casteal Abhail. 
 On the north-east and south the granite is 
 joined by mica slate ; on the south-east and 
 north by lower Silurian rocks, which are met 
 on the east and south by Devonian sandstone, 
 while lias and oolite lie above the mica slate. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CAVES OF ARRAN 
 
 fingal's cave 
 
 Close to the great fort at Drumadoon is the 
 famous cave at the base of the hill known as 
 Tor an Righ, or King's Hill, which the sea 
 has worn out of the sandstone. The roof 
 is arched, and the place lofty and spacious, 
 and on the walls are primitive drawings of 
 dogs and horses engaged in the chase, prob- 
 ably dating from prehistoric times, and, 
 according to tradition, intended to represent 
 Fion. In this cave also Bruce and his fol- 
 lowers found shelter during their wanderings 
 in the island, and there are the " King's kit- 
 chen," stable, and larder. 
 
 THE PREACHING CAVE AT KILPATRICK 
 
 Enoucrh of fame attaches to the ereat cave at 
 Drumadoon, for has it not sheltered both the 
 
32 ARRAN 
 
 gods in the person of Fion and his friends, 
 and kings in the person of Bruce ? Has it 
 not also been of service to common humanity 
 in sheltering many a keg of good spirits, 
 many a bale of good silk, many a pound of 
 fragrant tobacco ? Has it not seen more than 
 one tussle between the men of the Revenue 
 cutters which sailed up and down watching 
 the audacious smugglers of Arran and 
 Kintyre ? Was not a daring member of the 
 Clan Innain shot somewhere in these parts in 
 an encounter of the kind ? So Drumadoon, 
 having served all classes, gods, kings, lords, 
 and commons, need not usurp the glory of 
 the cave in which another member of the 
 Clan MacKinnon made his mark as one of 
 the many noted preachers of Arran. In this 
 cave Mr. Peter Craig, a man greatly liked 
 for his ability and his geniality, held a school 
 for many years which rivalled that of the 
 village schoolmaster, and turned out many 
 good scholars, who afterwards filled import- 
 ant positions in Glasgow and other towns. 
 
 The Preaching Cave was also sometimes 
 used for the ordinary Sunday services. 
 
THE CAVES OF ARRAN 33 
 
 Largest of all the Arran caves is that known 
 as the Monster Cave at Bennan Head, which 
 has also been used for religious services at 
 different times. Many ancient stone imple- 
 ments and other remains of primitive life 
 have been found amongst the rubbish on the 
 floor of this place. 
 
 The early Scottish missionaries made use 
 of many of the caves of the West Highlands 
 as dwelling-places, and it has been suggested 
 by Mr. Lyteill that the word "Piper's" cave so 
 often applied to them is really the word Pypar, 
 a priest. The dog and piper story which we 
 have all heard would thus probably have 
 arisen from the supposition that the word 
 referred to the ordinary profane piper. 
 
 THE WONDROUS BAUL OF SAINT MULUY 
 
 Martin, in his Western Islands, published in 
 1703, gives a description of the famous heal- 
 ing-stone which is still preserved by the Craw- 
 ford family. Martin says : "I had like to have 
 forgot a valuable curiosity in this isle, which 
 they call ' Baul muluy,' i.e. Molingus, his 
 3 
 
34 ARRAN 
 
 Stone Globe. This saint was Chaplain to 
 MackDonald of the Isles ; his name is cele- 
 brated here on account of this Globe, so much 
 esteemed by the inhabitants. This stone, for 
 its intrinsic value, has been carefully trans- 
 mitted to posterity for several ages. It is a 
 green stone, much like a globe in figure, about 
 the bigness of a goose egg. The virtues of 
 it is to remove stitches from the sides of sick 
 persons, by laying it close to the place affected, 
 and if the patient does not outlive the dis- 
 temper they say the stone moves out of the 
 bed of its own accord, and e contra. The natives 
 use this stone for swearing decisive oaths upon 
 it. They ascribe another extraordinary virtue 
 to it, and 'tis this — the credulous vulgar firmly 
 believe that if this stone is cast among the 
 front of an enemy they will all run away, and 
 that as often as the enemy rallies, if this stone 
 is cast among them, they will lose courage and 
 retire. 
 
 "They say that MackDonald of the Isles 
 carried this stone about him, and that victory 
 was always on his side when he threw it 
 among the enemy. The custody of this globe 
 
THE CAVES OF ARRAN 
 
 35 
 
 is the peculiar privilege of a little family called 
 Clan Chattons, alias Mackintosh. They were 
 ancient followers of MackDonald of the Isles. 
 This stone is now in the custody of Margaret 
 Miller, alias Mackintosh. She lives at Bell- 
 mianich, and preserves the globe with abund- 
 ance of care. It is wrapped in a fair linen 
 cloath, and about that there is a piece of 
 woollen cloath, and she keeps it still locked up 
 in her chest, when it is not given out to exert 
 its qualities." 
 
 One has to be careful of these things, and 
 it is well to note that the ball has one serious 
 disadvantage, which those who may wish to 
 avail themselves of its healing qualities 
 should keep in remembrance, else they might 
 be regarded as guilty of manslaughter or 
 worse. It is that, when the person who carries 
 the globe enters the house of the sick person, 
 the first living thing that crosses the line of 
 his path must die, whether it be as small as a 
 butterfly or as large as the ploughman and 
 four horses who, happening to get into the 
 same latitude, fell down dead in Glen Scorra 
 some time since. 
 
36 ARRAN 
 
 It is a little discouraging to know that the 
 globe is somewhat damaged through misad- 
 venture, showing clearly that the physician 
 had not power to heal itself. 
 
 As to its quality in aiding swearing it is also 
 a little out of date, and we doubt a week in 
 Cowcaddens, the Candlerigs, or in White- 
 chapel would fit one out with a fuller vocab- 
 ulary than even Baul Muluy. 
 
PART III 
 
 ARRAN IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THAT I WERE THERE!* 
 
 Roofless the walls and all around is dreary, 
 
 Cold the ingle-side and bare, 
 Men called it home, 'tis now the wild bird's eyrie, 
 
 Yet I would that I were there ! 
 
 Just to feel the wild wet breezes swirling 
 
 O'er the water and the whin. 
 To see the peat-reek o'er the cottage curling 
 
 And the hairst folk winning in. 
 
 To see the glens in Autumn's colours tender, 
 
 And the black Ben's misty wreath. 
 The birk and the breckan's dying splendour. 
 
 And the roaring linn beneath. 
 
 To see the foam from the white beach flying 
 And the boats leap through the waves, 
 
 And the ring of golden sea-tang lying 
 Strayed from Atlantic's caves. 
 
 To hear again the beach-nuts falling, falling, 
 
 When the plantin's winning bare. 
 To hear again the paitricks calling, calling. 
 
 Oh, would that I were there ! 
 
 M'K. M'B. 
 
 * IV/ik acknowledgments to " The Spectator^'' 
 
40 ARRAN 
 
 ARRAN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 THE OLD RUNRIG SYSTEM 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 Arran was in much the same condition as the 
 rest of the Highlands : the men tilled the lands 
 of their forefathers and ate the crops they 
 grew. They fished and shot game without 
 hindrance,* and the chiefs were more anxious 
 that there should exist on the land a hardy 
 race of strong men who could wield a clay- 
 more than to know what he received in bolls 
 of meal from the "kindly tenants" of the 
 lordship. The whole idea of Highland life 
 was in most districts still patriarchal : the 
 Highland chief had not developed into the 
 modern landlord. 
 
 In places like Arran, Bute, and Kintyre, 
 there was seldom a scarcity of food, and the 
 men of these parts possessed exceptional 
 hardihood. In Arran and Kintyre especially, 
 the old stories of feats of strength were plenti- 
 ful twenty years ago. Mr. Neil Munro has 
 
 * See the present writer's paper on The Rights of the 
 Individual under the Clan System. 
 
m 
 
 'Mi 
 
 
 m 
 
■:>^. 
 
 
 '^msm 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 41 
 
 given us an interesting, and I think well-con- 
 sidered, picture of the mainland of Argyll 
 fifty to seventy years earlier in his John 
 Splendid, showing that the conditions of life 
 as regards food were eminently suitable for 
 the rearing of strong men and women. It is 
 true that some of the Highland lairds, who 
 held by the charter rather than by the sword, 
 attempted to maintain a semi-feudal state of 
 things, and had become aggressive, but they 
 were the exception, and it seems to me that 
 even the occasional tyranny of these men was 
 better than the purely commercial relations 
 between rich and poor, chief and clansman, 
 which came into existence after the long 
 absence of the attainted chiefs who took part 
 in the Rising of 1745. Recently published 
 letters show the intimate relations which 
 existed in old times between the rich and 
 poor, the chief and his clansmen, and the great 
 difference that followed upon the return of the 
 chiefs. 
 
 The late Mr. Patrick Murray thus de- 
 scribes the rise in the value of land which 
 was then taking place in Scotland and 
 
42 ARRAN 
 
 England, due to the growth of industry and 
 other causes : — 
 
 " The country assumed a settled condition 
 to which it had long been strange. The first 
 of our countrymen began to return from the 
 Indies with fortunes acquired in our posses- 
 sions there — new life was given to industry 
 and enterprise of every kind, and the trade of 
 Glasgow and the country generally made a 
 fresh and vigorous start. As a consequence 
 of all this the price of land rose considerably 
 from the low level at which it had long stood, 
 and landlords in different parts of Scotland 
 took to farming on new and improved 
 methods. Although it may seem strange 
 now, these were introduced from England, 
 and English servants and implements of 
 husbandry were brought to Scotland for this 
 purpose. Lord Eglinton was one of the first 
 in this part of the country to set the example 
 on a large scale, and his English servants 
 introduced drill husbandry and the culture of 
 turnips into Ayrshire. At the peace of 1763 
 large fortunes made during the war with great 
 rapidity were brought home and invested in 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 43 
 
 land, and money diffused itself amongst all 
 classes. The price of corn rose at least one- 
 third. The price of cattle, which had almost 
 doubled in the previous thirty years, rose in 
 1766 still higher. Farming and improve- 
 ments became the fashion, and every country 
 gentleman took to them on a greater or less 
 scale. 
 
 "The farms were let on leases of nineteen 
 years' duration, and at their entry to them the 
 tenants had paid a grassum, which was the 
 last of this custom in Arran. These leases 
 began to expire in 1766, the greater part of 
 them falling out in 1772. In view of this, the 
 tutors of the Duke of Hamilton, who was then 
 a minor, determined to set about the improve- 
 ment of the island, and appointed Mr. John 
 Burrell, their factor at Kinneil, to reset the 
 tacks and to advise the measures to be adopted 
 for improvement, and to direct the operations 
 resolved on." 
 
 JOHN BURRELL 
 
 This man played an important part in the 
 later history of Arran. He was, judging by 
 
44 
 
 ARRAN 
 
 name, probably English or of English origin. 
 He was a perfect stranger, at any rate, and 
 there is no one like a stranger for the work 
 if you want the old landmarks removed, for 
 a stranger knows no traditions, feels no senti- 
 mental scruples. This the Highland land- 
 lords realised perfectly a little later when they 
 wished to evict the old tillers of the soil to 
 make room for sheep or deer. 
 
 Mr. Murray says : "In carrying out his 
 commission Mr. Burrell visited Arran from 
 1766 to 1782, at least nine times, for periods 
 ranging from one to four months. He made 
 what he calls a ' strict survey ' of every farm, 
 and reported fully his whole doings in the 
 island. 
 
 HIS SCHEME OF IMPROVEMENT 
 
 " Of all his schemes, the most important was 
 the making of enclosures, on which work large 
 sums were spent by the proprietor on his 
 recommendation. An overseer and workmen 
 were brought from the mainland to make the 
 dikes on several farms as a sample of what 
 was wanted, and afterwards the tenants them- 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 45 
 
 selves were encouraged to do the work. 
 Forty spades were ordered from Ayrshire to 
 begin with, but Arran smiths were allowed 
 to try their hands on more. The old turf 
 dykes which are still to be seen in the island, 
 some of them outside the limits of the arable 
 land, are part of those laid out by Mr. Burrell 
 at this time. Those at Drumadoon and at 
 Torbeg and Tormore were some of the first 
 made, and also those at Blairbeg, but in re- 
 setting the tacks a certain amount was stipu- 
 lated to be done on every farm at the 
 proprietor's expense. He opened the lime 
 quarry in the Clachan Glen, and also the 
 slate quarry at Lochranza. He made a 
 trial for coal at the Cock Farm, and put down 
 a bore at Clauchlands. He inveighed against 
 the barbarous system of runrig and rundale 
 which the tenantry of the Island of Arran 
 were so fond of. He lamented the extrava- 
 gant number of horses kept by the tenants, 
 and ordered that a plough and oxen should 
 be sent to the island, and a premium given to 
 the tenant who first ploughed his land with 
 oxen. In short, to quote his own words — 
 
46 ARRAN 
 
 * Many a serious thought and contemplation 
 the memorialist has bestowed upon the culti- 
 vation and improvement of this island which 
 had the effect to produce many a different 
 idea.' " 
 
 The older families had exceptional rights, 
 many of them the remains of their original 
 proprietorship or of privileges granted long ago 
 to their ancestors. Mr. Burrell introduced 
 new men from Argyll and the low country, 
 and gave them the same rights and privileges, 
 or rather restricted the old rights to the same 
 level as those granted to the new-comers, 
 naturally causing much heartburning and dis- 
 content amongst the old clans of the island. 
 
 THE GREAT REVOLUTION 
 
 " At that time," Mr. Murray says, " farms in 
 the island were arranged so that the whole 
 were out of lease at one time in the year 
 1776. This was done to admit of rectification 
 of marches and a better division of the farms 
 and of the interior or hill grazings. . . . This, 
 we may be sure, was a serious enough business 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 47 
 
 for both parties, but it did not altogether take 
 the heart out of the tenants." 
 
 Of course the greatest revolution Mr. 
 Burrell effected was in the conversion of 
 the old runrig farms into lots or separate hold- 
 ings. By the runrig system the farm was 
 cultivated in strips by four to ten or more 
 tenants, generally of the same family. The 
 strips changed hands every two years. The 
 plan was interesting, and essentially com- 
 munistic in character. Mr. Burrell viewed 
 it with horror, though it really stood upon a 
 higher moral basis than the competitive method 
 which followed. Nor was there anything 
 inherently bad in it commercially, or need 
 why it should fail, provided the farm and the 
 individual strips were large enough to support 
 the men who tilled them. 
 
 So far from reflecting upon the intelli- 
 gence of the men who adopted it, as Mr. 
 Burrell and Mr. Murray thought it did, the 
 runrig system was based on a principle on 
 which we are acting little by little to-day — 
 the principle of real co-operation. Loudon 
 says of it : " Absurd as the common field 
 
48 ARRAN 
 
 system is at this day, it was admirably suited 
 to the circumstances in which it originated, 
 the plan having been conceived in wisdom, 
 and executed with extraordinary accuracy." 
 
 A kind of administrative committee, which 
 was formed apparently by Mr. Burrell himself 
 in i77o,included the following members: John 
 Burrell, George Couper, William MacGregor, 
 Patrick Hamilton, John Hamilton, Gershom 
 Stewart (minister of Kilbride), Duncan Mac- 
 Bride, John Pette, John Fullarton, Gavin 
 Fullarton, John Hamilton, Thomas Brown, 
 William Ogg, Hector MacAllister, Alexander 
 MacGregor, John MacCook, and Adam 
 Fullarton. Of these at least four were directly 
 or indirectly employed by the Arran estate 
 manager, while ten of the whole number 
 were dependent on the Hamilton interest, and 
 bound to support Mr. Burrell's measures ; so 
 that this committee cannot be taken as a 
 popularly representative one for the whole 
 island, anything of the nature of popular 
 government being as yet unknown. 
 
 The chief matter discussed was the question 
 of a scheme for a service of packet boats run- 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 49 
 
 ning between the island and Saltcoats. Other 
 matters decided by the committee were — 
 
 Rogue and road money, and statute labour on the roads. 
 
 The suming and rouming of the island, which was im- 
 mediately carried into execution. 
 
 Tenants to keep herds and to fold their cattle every night, 
 according to Act of Parliament. 
 
 Multures to be commuted for a fixed payment per boll 
 meal for grinding. 
 
 Sheep to be marked, and no cattle or sheep to be killed 
 without calling together a jury of the three nearest neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 All weights and measures to be taken to the castle, and 
 compared with Ayr weights and measures. 
 
 With a view to encouraging improvements 
 in husbandry in 1776, premiums were offered 
 to the tenants as follows : — 
 
 To the tenant who shall produce the best three-year-old 
 humbled bull of his own property, not under the value of 
 £10 stg. — 5 guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall produce the best two-year-old tup 
 of Bakewell and Chaplin kind — full blood — not under the 
 value of £-, stg. — 2J guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall produce the best three-year-old 
 entire horse, not under the value oi £i-, stg., and not above 1 5 
 hands high — 7^ guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall have the best field of turnips, not 
 under 3 acres, sown broad-cast after a summer fallow by 
 3 ploughings, and manured — 6 guineas. And to him who 
 shall have the best field not under 3 acres, in drills 2^ feet 
 distance, horsehoed no less than 3 times, and the ground 
 well manured — 5 guineas. 
 4 
 
50 
 
 ARRAN 
 
 To the tenant who shall have the best field of cabbages, 
 not less than 2 acres, well prepared, planted at 4 feet distance 
 'twixt rows, and ij feet distance in the rows, which will take 
 about 20,000 plants — to be three times horsehoed (which, 
 at 4 lbs. a plant, will fatten in 9 weeks 16 head of cattle, 
 which should sell at £2, advance, or ^24 an acre) — shall have 
 6 guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall have the first 10 acres enclosure 
 finished in terms of the articles — 5 guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall have the greatest quantity and 
 best quality of wheat upon enclosed ground, and after a 
 thorough summer fallow of 5 furrows, sufficiently manured, 
 and no less than 2 acres — 2 guineas. 
 
 To the tenant who shall have the greatest quantity of 
 clover and rye-grass hay from at least 2 acres, sown with 
 barley or wheat, after summer fallow, of 5 furrows, and pro- 
 perly manured, and not less than 100 stones an acre, and 
 upon enclosed ground — 2 guineas. 
 
 Amongst the prize-winners in the two years 
 following were Angus MacKillop, Alexander 
 Thomson, Patrick Crawford, Robert Shaw, 
 John Currie, and Alexander MacKinnon. 
 
 The Duke also obtained the services of an 
 experienced fisherman, one Andrew Wilson, 
 to teach the art of line fishing to any of the 
 islanders who applied to him. 
 
 SMUGGLING IN ARRAN 
 
 As on other parts of the coast, at this time a 
 good deal of money was made by the natives 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 51 
 
 out of smuggling — possibly more than was in 
 many cases made out of their crofts. Mr. 
 Murray says : " No notice of Arran at this 
 time is possible without a reference to the 
 making and smuggling of the famous * Arran 
 water.' In spite of gaugers, excise officers, 
 and frequent seizures of malt and whisky, it 
 was persevered in. As the Arran people are 
 pre-eminently law-abiding, I can only account 
 for this peculiarity on the supposition that 
 the product of their stills was so very good 
 that they could not find it in their hearts to 
 believe that any law could make the making 
 of it bad. I find a list of 32 stills in Arran in 
 1784, of which 23 were in the south end. In 
 that year an Act of Parliament was passed for 
 the licensing of small stills in the Highlands 
 of Scotland, by which proprietors were made 
 liable, along with their tenants, for the heavy 
 fines imposed in case of the latter being con- 
 victed of illicit distillation. After the passing 
 of the Act 26 stills were collected and carried to 
 the Castle. In 1797, when illicit distillation 
 would appear to have been at its height, a 
 letter from Arran describes whisky as a perfect 
 
52 ARRAN 
 
 drug in the market — it being supposed there 
 were no less than 50 stills at the south end of 
 the island. At that time the whole annual 
 produce of here (from 500 to 2000 quarters), 
 would appear to have been used in the Island 
 for distilling. It suffered no decrease until, 
 in the early years of the nineteenth century, 
 the Duke of Hamilton threatened to dis- 
 possess any tenant convicted of illicit distilla- 
 tion, and from that time it appears to have 
 decreased, and then disappeared entirely. In 
 the malt kiln, the ruins of which are still stand- 
 ing in the grounds of the Whitehouse, there was 
 a licensed still of the capacity of forty gallons, 
 from which, from December 1793 to Novem- 
 ber 1794, whisky was sold to the amount of 
 ;!^5oo at 2s. per Scotch pint, or 4s. per gallon." 
 Every one, including the Duke and Mr. 
 Burrell, was shocked at the smuggling, and 
 for it the islanders were roundly abused by 
 the ministers. 
 
 FAMOUS ARRAN PREACHERS 
 
 It must not be supposed from this, however, 
 that Arran was a drunken island. Mr. Pater- 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 53 
 
 son, writing in 1830, says emphatically that 
 it was not so, and Arran was prolific in 
 preachers. The Rev. J. Kennedy Cameron 
 says in his Memoir of the Rev. John Mac- 
 Allister : " Smuggling was common in 
 Arran at that time, and John MacAlister 
 took his share in smuggling adventures 
 like the rest. But a religious revival 
 arose in Kilmorie, under the preaching of the 
 parish minister, the Rev. Neil MacBride, and 
 among the awakened people were Angus 
 MacMillan, Finlay and Archibald Cook, 
 Peter Davidson, Archibald Nicol, and John 
 MacAlister — men who afterwards attained a 
 great deal of religious influence throughout 
 the HiQ^hlands." 
 
 And of course Arran was not the only 
 place in which there was smuggling. It was 
 carried on also in Kintyre and Galloway, and 
 on every other coast of Scotland, including Mr. 
 Burrell's own neighbourhood of the Forth ! 
 In the Essex district, to which reference has 
 been made, it went on to an enormous extent, 
 the houses of the wealthy, and even the 
 very churches, being used as storehouses in 
 
54 ARRAN 
 
 which to hide spirits and other smuggled 
 articles. 
 
 So that, though we can appreciate the 
 valuable picture Mr. Burrell's diary gives us 
 of the Arran of his day, we must remember 
 that it was impossible for him to view things 
 from the native's point of view. He supplies 
 us with the facts, but we must ourselves put 
 in the pinches of salt if we would get at the 
 truth, without doing injustice to the men of 
 our own hearths who lived through that time 
 of revolution and bitter disillusionment in 
 Arran and the Highlands generally. 
 
 For example, Mr. Burrell shows that hus- 
 bandry was old-fashioned and poor, that there 
 were no proper roads in the modern sense, 
 that the bridges were of wood, the connection 
 with the mainland irregular, letters being 
 delivered haphazard as opportunity offered. 
 That the boat fare to Ayr was 15s., that the 
 boats were badly constructed and deficient in 
 the matter of tackle, and that the whole of 
 the island, save the park of Brodick Castle, 
 was unenclosed. 
 
 But of course we must not assume that 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 55 
 
 Arran was the only place without roads, or was 
 necessarily behind very many, if not most, 
 other districts of England and Scotland. 
 
 We are told that the first manure ever ap- 
 plied to land in Ayrshire was in 1758 and 
 1760. In Essex we read of a road having 
 been ploughed with the object of levelling the 
 ruts ; and that in 1 768 " no road ever equalled 
 that from Billericay to the King's Head at 
 Tilbury. It is for nearly twelve miles so 
 narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any car- 
 riage. . . . The ruts are of an incredible depth 
 . . . and I must not forget the eternally 
 meeting with chalk-waggons, themselves fre- 
 quently stuck fast, till a collection of them are 
 in the same situation, and twenty or thirty 
 horses may be tacked to each to draw them 
 out one by one." 
 
 Nor were the manners of the people all that 
 could be desired, even in this enlightened 
 county so near London. " The men were 
 notoriously drunken, and the clergy ignorant, 
 intemperate, and neglectful. It is said that the 
 farmers who met at a certain Rochford hos- 
 telry used to set a hen on their arrival, and 
 
56 ARRAN 
 
 would continue their drinking bout until the 
 chickens were hatched." * 
 
 Very different is the description of the 
 Arran people given by Pennant and by 
 Paterson, a later factor of the island, who 
 says : "In moral character the people of 
 Arran . . . are hospitable amongst themselves 
 and to strangers. They are more confiding 
 in each other than is altogether prudent. 
 The money and other property of the more 
 fortunate among them are freely lent to those 
 in need, often when there is but a slight pro- 
 spect of repayment. To their aged and 
 infirm relations they are generally kind and 
 dutiful, and scarcely any are ever allowed to 
 beg their bread. . . . The people of Arran 
 may justly be described as a religious com- 
 munity ... so far as recollected, there is not 
 a single native who can with justice be called 
 a drunkard." 
 
 It would have been well if those later 
 writers upon Arran, like the Rev. Mr. Mac- 
 Arthur, who talk of the introduction amongst 
 its people of " the more practical and enlight- 
 
 * Rambles round Southend, by the present writer. 
 
m 
 
 ^. 
 
 m 
 
 tf^^a^i 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 57 
 
 ened views of their lowland neighbours," 
 had looked round to see what their lowland 
 and English neighbours actually did before 
 making their unkind reflections. 
 
 THE ARRAN EVICTIONS 
 
 Mr. Burrell was a man of exceptional 
 ability, and introduced many valuable agri- 
 cultural reforms, but his hand was undoubtedly, 
 against the natives, and the inevitable result of 
 the " lotting " of the island into large farms 
 and the restriction of the hill grazings, was that 
 wholesale evictions followed about the year 
 1 81 2 to 1 81 5. ' Again, about the year 182 1, 
 it is stated that 500 persons were sent away 
 chiefly from the Sannox district. About 
 half the passage money was paid by the 
 Duke, who also obtained for them grants of 
 land from Government amounting to 100 
 acres per family. Many of the people 
 settled in lower Canada and Chaleur Bay. The 
 Rev. Alexander MacBride states in his New 
 Statistical Account of Kilmory, that many of 
 the ejected families emigrated to North 
 
58 ARRAN 
 
 America but by far the greater number 
 removed to Ayrshire towns. 
 
 But long prior to this, in 1770, five years 
 after Mr. Burrell's advent, the people were 
 leaving the old home which was undergoing 
 so radical an alteration. In that year 
 Burrell considers that it was dangerous to 
 suspend the "Baron" Court for six months, 
 " finding that so many people intending for 
 America, to leave the place at the time 
 without a judge would be leaving it in the 
 power of these emigrants to rob both his 
 grace and their neighbours." > 
 
 The suggestion that Highlanders would 
 at that time rob their own unfortunate kins- 
 folk, when themselves broken-hearted at the 
 prospect of leaving all they knew and loved, 
 seems wanton and without justification in fact 
 or precedent. It is fortunately clear from his 
 own arrangement made previously, to defer 
 the sitting of the Baron Court for six months 
 (which he thus wished to alter), that the men 
 of Arran could not have been other than the 
 quiet, law-abiding folk visitors find them 
 to-day. Imagine us in 19 10 deferring the 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59 
 
 sittings of a court for six months in a com- 
 munity of six thousand persons ! 
 
 Of course bitter feelings and keen opposi- 
 tion were aroused by the revolutionary 
 changes, just as in the years following the 
 introduction of the black-faced sheep (from 
 about 1790) and the consequent clearing 
 of the Sannox district, we are told by an- 
 other able and not unkindly factor of the 
 estate, John Paterson, that the people "opposed 
 the changes in every way short of physical 
 resistance." It is made clear in the " Diary " 
 that Burrell's stern and iconoclastic measures 
 had roused the people to hatred and despair, 
 and he complains of them plotting against 
 the Duke. 
 
 Whatever else they accomplished, Mr. 
 Burrell's efforts do not seem to have im- 
 proved the comfort of the people, for we are 
 told that about 18 10 the condition of all 
 save the few big tacksmen was miserable, 
 that their houses were the meanest hovels, 
 while they were clad in the coarsest garments 
 of home manufacture. 
 
 It seems that, as happened with the in- 
 
6o ARRAN 
 
 troduction of purely commercial methods into 
 England, the people were robbed of many 
 privileges and perquisites which they had long 
 reofarded as their own. Their condition thus 
 became worse than it was in 1766, when 
 the changes commenced, though it is pre- 
 tended by Mr. MacArthur and others that in 
 the Highlands all good things followed the 
 introduction of modern methods after the 
 Forty-five, when strangers of Mr. Burrell's 
 type were set to work to " reform "the High- 
 lands by reducing men and things therein to 
 what Mr. Cunningham Graham would call 
 their " lowest common multiple " — the prin- 
 ciple of commercialism. In this work it is to 
 be feared that many of the old ministers un- 
 consciously lent a hand, by their efforts to 
 beat the harmless and already well-cudgelled 
 natives into "reform." For in their ardour 
 they were unable to discriminate between 
 those customs that lent gaiety and bright- 
 ness to Highland life, and were in them- 
 selves a valuable possession which made 
 for refinement, and those which were really 
 harmful. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 6i 
 WHAT PENNANT SAW 
 
 Pennant, an Englishman, writing in 1776, 
 or just ten years after Mr. Burrell was sent to 
 modernise Arran, says : " The men (of Arran) 
 are strong, tall, and well made ... all speak 
 the Erse language. Their diet is chiefly pota- 
 toes and meal, and during winter some dried 
 mutton or goat is added to their hard fare. 
 A deep dejection appears in general through 
 the countenances of all : no time can be spared 
 for amusement of any kind, the whole being 
 given for procuring the means of paying their 
 rent, of laying in their fuel, or getting in a 
 scanty pittanceofmeatand clothing." Pennant, 
 in 1 77 1, again points out that the farms were 
 " set by roup or auction, and advanced by un- 
 natural force to above double the old rent." 
 He says further that "the late rents were scarce 
 ;^i200 a year ; the expected rents ^3000." 
 
 The actual rent-roll of the island in the year 
 1778 was roundly, according to Mr. Burrell's 
 own figures, ^5550, or with some additions 
 ^5880. 
 
 From this it will be seen how greatly his 
 
62 ARRAN 
 
 efforts had improved his employer's property, 
 and had stimulated the rent-roll, while they 
 had ruined and impoverished the lives of 
 the people. 
 
 As a contrast to the description of the Arran 
 islanders by Pennant above quoted, may be 
 taken his description of the songs, the gaiety, 
 the pleasant lore, and the colour generally by 
 which life in the Highlands had been every- 
 where characterised. Describing the Island of 
 Skye in the same year he says : " They sing in 
 the same manner when they are cutting down 
 the corn, when thirty or forty join in chorus, 
 keeping time to the sound of a bagpipe, as the 
 Grecian lasses were wont to do to that of a 
 lyre during the vintage in the days of Homer. 
 The subject of the songs at the Luaghadh, the 
 Quern, and on this occasion, are sometimes 
 love, sometimes panegyric, and often a re- 
 hearsal of the deeds of the ancient heroes." 
 All these things, surely a splendid inheritance 
 and worth preserving, surely a fine contrast to 
 the silly songs of the music-halls of Glasgow 
 and London, have gone, swept away in the 
 desire to modernise and get more money out 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 63 
 
 of life instead of gaiety, refinement, good 
 feeling, character. 
 
 I have heard it stated that in Sannox the 
 people were evicted because there had been 
 so much intermarrying that there were great 
 numbers of deaf and dumb persons in the vil- 
 lages ! I have not, however, found any justi- 
 fication for this statement. There was in Arran 
 generally, as there is in all country districts, a 
 certain amount of intermarrying, but it does 
 not appear to have been commoner than in any 
 other part of Scotland, nor than in English 
 rural districts, and it was certainly less 
 common than in Norway and many other 
 parts of the Continent. My judgment is 
 based upon a list of the surnames then in 
 Sannox, many of which were those of com- 
 paratively new-comers, and not of Arran 
 origin. In view of the nearness of the island 
 to Kintyre, Bute, the mainland of Argyll, 
 and to Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, I doubt 
 much whether the intermarrying has at any 
 time been great enough to affect the health and 
 physique of the people in the slightest degree. 
 
 The fact is, that the people stood in the 
 
64 ARRAN 
 
 way of huge farms, of the deer, the sheep, 
 and of absolute ownership ; as Mr. Somer- 
 ville of Lochgilphead, quoted by MacKenzie,* 
 said of that time : " The watchword of all is 
 exterminate, exterminate the native race. 
 Through this monomania of landlords the 
 cottar population is all but extinct, and the 
 substantial yeomen is undergoing the same 
 process of dissolution." To give an example, 
 ** On the west side of Loch Awe," MacKenzie 
 says, '* once forty-five families were main- 
 tained ; the place is now rented by a single 
 sheep farmer." 
 
 Dr. Donald MacLeod, writing in 1863, said, 
 " Is not a man better than sheep ? They who 
 would have shed their blood like water for 
 Queen and country are in other lands, High- 
 land still, but expatriated for ever." 
 
 If you want men to-day, 
 
 Pipe you never so loudly, 
 No lads come away 
 
 With their cheeks glowing proudly ; 
 You may call on the deer, 
 
 On the grouse and grey wether, 
 But not on the lads 
 
 With the bonnet and feather : 
 
 * History of the Highland Clearances. 
 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 65 
 
 When you called to the fight 
 
 Then they ever were ready, 
 They, light-hearted and gay. 
 
 They, the strong and the steady ! 
 
 ARRAN AND THE FORTY-FIVE 
 
 The Hamiltons are said by Mr. Andrew 
 Lang not to have been on the side of the 
 Stuarts at the time of the famous rising, 
 but Mr. James MacBride, writer (of Glas- 
 gow), states that his great-grandfather, James 
 MacGregor, was sent by the duke with a 
 letter to Prince Charles. When MacGregor, 
 whose papers seem to confirm this story, 
 reached the prince, he was at Culloden, and 
 seeing that the letter could now only bring 
 certain trouble to his chief, he took it back 
 to the duke, who was pleased with his 
 shrewdness. Years after, when MacGregor 
 was about to be ejected from his farm at 
 Clachan, by the side of the old graveyard 
 of Shisken, he wrote a letter to the duke, 
 which is still, I understand, preserved, in 
 which he appealed against the factor's action 
 in ejecting him, and reminded him in guarded 
 5 
 
66 ARRAN 
 
 language of the service he had rendered years 
 before. MacGregor, a fiery and outspoken 
 old Highlander, and his brother, came from 
 Bracklin, and were at one time high in the 
 duke's favour. 
 
 Mr. MacBrlde, who tells the story, is the 
 grand old man of Arran, being over ninety 
 years of age. He is as handsome, as rosy 
 cheeked, and as alert as a man of sixty, and 
 still goes down to his business every morn- 
 ing at nine o'clock and discusses his clients' 
 causes, or, in unoccupied moments, will crack 
 over old Arran memories with much en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 The writer of the New Statistical Account 
 of Kilmory states that the Hon. Charles 
 Boyle, son of Lord Kilmarnock, fled, like his 
 ancestors had done in Brace's time, to Arran, 
 and lay concealed in the farm of Auchalef- 
 fan till he found a chance of getting across 
 to France. This, says the writer, was the 
 Mr. Boyle who received Dr. Johnson at 
 Slanes Castle many years later. 
 
PART IV 
 THE BRANDANI 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OLD FAMILIES IN ARRAN 
 
 THE ARRAN AND BUTE BARONS 
 
 On the mainland of Scotland, highland and 
 lowland, the old historic names have gradually 
 been rooted out, just as in England the old 
 " Statesmen " of Westmorland and Cumber- 
 land have been bought or sold out by the few 
 great landholders. The whole tendency has 
 been for the possession of the land to become 
 concentrated in the hands of a very few. The 
 Johnstones no longer hold Annandale as 
 "kindly tenants" or small lairds ; the Gallo- 
 way clans are mixed up with the rest of the 
 community ; the lairds of Kintyre might be 
 numbered on your fingers ; and the MacVicars, 
 Munros, MacNicols, MacKellars, Maclntur- 
 ners, and others have long disappeared from 
 
 Loch Fyne. The very names have in many 
 
 69 
 
70 ARRAN 
 
 cases vanished, and all the old traditions of 
 the countryside which they inherited from 
 their fathers have gone with them. 
 
 In Arran and in Bute things were some- 
 what different, and as reward for service 
 rendered to the Bruces and the Stewarts the 
 old Brandani were supported in their posses- 
 sions by the kings to which the two islands 
 belonged from time to time. At the date of 
 the Bute charter of 1506 the Butemen are 
 shown to have been possessed of lands, and 
 there is every reason to believe that the 
 people of Arran, with whom they had been 
 closely associated in all their exploits, held, 
 in an identical manner, the lands which they 
 had probably first received from the Somer- 
 ledian chiefs, the design of Robert Bruce to 
 keep the islands as a recruiting ground for 
 the Scottish army being clearly shown in his 
 will. 
 
 So it has happened that amongst the 
 people of Arran and Bute are still represented 
 the old Barons, who date from the days of 
 Bruce and Robert 11., and in many cases from 
 the time of Somerled. The old Gaelic pro- 
 
OLD FAMILIES IN ARRAN 71 
 
 verb says : " Clann Bhridean agus clann 
 Ennain, na cloinne a's sine ann an Arrinn," 
 and amongst the old names are also Mac- 
 Louie (MacLoy or Fullarton), MacCook (in 
 Gaelic, MacCug), MacDavid or Davidson, 
 MacGilker, MacAllister, Stewart, Hunter, 
 Kelso, Kerr, Kennedy, MacMhurrich or 
 MacVurich (which has been whittled down 
 to Murchie and Currie), MacMaster, Brown 
 (MacBraon or MacBrayne), MacNicol, 
 Love, Crawford, Hamilton, MacNish, while 
 MacMillan, MacKillop, MacKenzie, Shaw, 
 Thomson, Robertson, Bannatyne, and Mac- 
 Kelvie are later but yet old names in the 
 island. Nearly all these families are still 
 represented in Arran, though their names 
 date back longer than those of half the 
 members of the House of Lords. 
 
 Mr. Patrick Murray, late factor of the Arran 
 estates, writing in 1890, says: "One thing I 
 have had brought home to me in looking back 
 over these old records is the frequency with 
 which I recognise names in the rental of to- 
 day in that of one hundred years ago. In 
 some cases the same names — both surname 
 
72 ARRAN 
 
 and Christian — appear in the very same farms 
 as they did last century. Any of these Arran 
 tenants I refer to would have no difficulty in 
 compiling their pedigree for the Herald's Col- 
 lege whenever that should be wanted." 
 
 In Arran and Bute the relations between 
 chief and people had in old times been excep- 
 tionally close, as will be seen by the account 
 of the Battle of the Stones in another chapter. 
 There had long been a middle class of gentry 
 in both islands. A visitor to the island in 
 1628 says : " Neither is there any isle like to 
 it for brave gentry, good archers, and hill- 
 hovering hunters." These were, it seems 
 from the surnames, originally descendants of 
 Somerled, like the MacBrides, MacKirdys, 
 MacAllisters, and Bannatynes, and of officers 
 and others attached to the household of 
 Somerled, like the MacKinnons, MacVurichs, 
 and probably the MacCugs, Hunters, and 
 also the MacGilchattans and MacGildowies, 
 who seem to have originated in Kintyre. 
 
 According to the tradition, at the time of 
 Bruce, they were confirmed in their posses- 
 sions, and got new grants, while later the 
 
OLD FAMILIES IN ARRAN 73 
 
 Stewarts and others joined their ranks ; their 
 duty was to provide a force of twenty-four 
 men to form the king's bodyguard. They 
 certainly were transferred with all their 
 rights on the passing of the island of Arran 
 to the Lord Hamilton, who had married 
 the king's sister, Jane. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, as is shown by historical documents, 
 they seem to have held by military service 
 of the Hamiltons. The old tradition is that 
 the holders of the charters, which the older 
 generation of Arran men affirm were identical 
 with those granted to MacLouie, got into 
 debt owing to the small annual tribute to the 
 superior not having been claimed for many 
 years, and that the Hamilton family impounded 
 the charters. Be that as it may, it is certain 
 that the descendants of these men were called 
 " Baron " within the recollections of persons 
 now living, and this title was used only by 
 military tenants of the Crown. The Rev. 
 Neil MacBride of Lamlash, a nephew of the 
 Rev. Alexander MacBride, author of the 
 New Statistical Account of Kilmory Parish, 
 wrote in 1890: " Bruce's Arran friends who 
 
74 ARRAN 
 
 received gifts of land in the island bore the 
 names you have given, as I have often heard, 
 and a descendant of one of them, M'Kinnon, 
 who died at Brodick in my own day, was 
 better known as ' The Baron ' than by his 
 own name." 
 
 Local tradition is, and has always been, very 
 strong on the point. MacArthur says, writing 
 in 1870 : "A few centuries ago the lands of 
 the island were divided amongst several petty 
 chiefs or barons, and standing stones were raised 
 as landmarks to define the boundaries of their 
 possessions, and prevent the encroachment of 
 neighbouring chiefs . . . and among the dells 
 and over the heathery moors these rude monu- 
 ments of the island chiefs may still be seen, 
 mutely eloquent of the . . . old times. By the 
 roadside between Brodick and Lamlash there 
 stand three massive blocks of red sandstone, 
 which are said to mark the spot where the lands 
 of three of the old proprietors of Arran met." 
 Pennant, who during his stay in the island in 
 1 77 1 was shown about by the parish minister, 
 Mr. Lindsay, and visited Fullarton of Kilmich- 
 ael, and no doubt got his information largely 
 
OLD FAMILIES IN ARRAN 75 
 
 from him, says : " Arran was the property of the 
 Crown. Robert Bruce returned thither during 
 his distresses, and met with protection from his 
 faithful vassals. Numbers of them followed his 
 fortunes ; and after the battle of Bannockburn 
 he rewarded several, such as the MacCooks, 
 MacKinnons, MacBrides, and MacLouies or 
 Fullartons with different charters of lands in 
 their native country." Other writers add 
 the names of the Stewarts and Hunters to 
 this list. 
 
 Pennant goes on to say : " About the year 
 1334 the island seems to have formed part of 
 the estate of Robert Stewart, Great Steward of 
 Scotland, afterwards Robert 11. At that time " 
 (the natives) "lookup arms tosupport the cause 
 of their master, who afterwards, in reward, not 
 only granted at their request an immunity from 
 their annual tribute of corn, but added several 
 new privileges, and a donation to all the inhabi- 
 tants that were present." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BRANDANES 
 OR, MEN OF ARRAN AND BUTE 
 
 I HAVE in the following pages adopted the old 
 
 name of the islanders, as it is quite impossible 
 
 in many cases to distinguish between deeds 
 
 done by the Arran or Butemen singly and 
 
 those done collectively. 
 
 Arnold Blair, chaplain to Wallace, from 
 
 whose MS. Blind Harry got his material, 
 
 writing shortly after the death of Wallace, 
 
 in 1305, says: "In this unfortunate battle 
 
 (Falkirk) were slain, on the Scottish side, 
 
 John Stewart of Bute, with his Brandans ; 
 
 for so they name them that are taken up 
 
 to serve in the wars forth of the Stewart's 
 
 lands." Both the islands had, it will be 
 
 remembered, been acquired by the Stewarts 
 
 a century earlier by the marriage with Jane, 
 
 76 
 
THE BRANDANES 77 
 
 granddaughter of Angus MacSomhairle. 
 Hector Boece, writing in 1527, says: 
 " Brandani — ita enim ea aetata incolse Arain 
 et Boitae insularum vulgo vocabantur." 
 " The term," says Fullarton, " has been under- 
 stood as denoting the miHtary tenants holding 
 of the Great Steward " ; and this explanation 
 seems to fit in best with all the facts, especi- 
 ally with the evidences of their independent 
 action on many occasions, — an independence 
 worthy of the old Gall Gael of whom they 
 were the descendants. D. Macpherson says : 
 "The people of Bute, and I believe also 
 of Arran, perhaps so called in honour of 
 St. Brendan." St. Brendan, who died in a.d. 
 577, was a companion of St. Colum or Col- 
 umba. Camden states that the saint lived 
 and laboured in Bute ; but there seems to 
 be no direct evidence of this. 
 
 The Rev. Neil MacBride of Lamlash 
 again suggests that the word Brandani 
 means the bold water or spray men ; and, 
 of course, it is quite possible that it may 
 mean simply the men of the sea of Bran- 
 dan. The Book of Arran goes, I think, far 
 
78 ARRAN 
 
 afield when it follows Captain White, who 
 assumes that the name Kilbrannan refers to 
 a kil or cell of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and 
 tries to find in a small church on the coast of 
 Kintyre the actual cell of this saint. Mr. 
 Balfour, is, I think, equally mistaken in 
 believing that in the site at Kilpatrick they 
 have discovered the real St. Brendan's church. 
 The site, he says, is "on the northern shoulder 
 of Leac Bhreac." The name of the hill that 
 guards it isTorr an Daimh, which he translates 
 "the hill of the church." This is, he says, 
 " the only known memorial save the record 
 furnished by the cashel itself, that this was 
 one of the first outposts of Christianity in 
 Scotland." This site, first discovered by the 
 Arran Society, may, of course, be ecclesi- 
 astical, but it does not follow that it was 
 founded by Brendan. 
 
 Mr. Balfour asks where, failing this, is the 
 church which gives its name to Kilbrandon 
 Sound ? 
 
 St. Brendan does not seem to have figured 
 largely in the West Highlands. There is a 
 small parish church in Argyll called Kil- 
 
THE BRANDANES 79 
 
 brandon, and my suggestion is that the name 
 of the Sound contains no reference to a 
 church ; that the word is not Kil but " Kyle," 
 a narrow sea, passage, or strait of water, 
 which is familiar in the " Kyles " of Bute, the 
 "Kyle" of Lochalsh, " Kulri " in Skye. I 
 suggest that this name was given long before 
 Brendan's time, and is taken from the name 
 Bran or Branan MacLir, a brother of Man- 
 nanan, who beyond doubt gave his name 
 to the neighbour isle of Man. They were 
 sons of Ler the sea-god, made famous by 
 Shakespeare, and in the Keltic story, The 
 Fate of the Childj^en of Lir. The old name 
 of the islanders, assuming that it contains the 
 same root, the Brandani or Brannani, would 
 be thus the followers of the war-god, a name 
 that would fit their character when history 
 first introduces us to them. By that time Bran 
 had undergone the change which so many of 
 his brother gods underwent when the Chris- 
 tian monks had the shrewdness to appropriate 
 them for their own Church ; he was by them 
 credited with having introduced Christianity 
 into Britain, and became Bran the Blessed ! 
 
8o ARRAN 
 
 The fact that the name of the saint, though 
 common in Ireland, does not occur amongst 
 the men either of Arran or Kintyre, who are 
 all men of the Sound of Kilbrandon, seems to 
 support my contention, or at any rate to 
 suggest that the saint's and their name have 
 no connection with each other, save that they 
 are probably borrowed from the same source. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the Rev. J. K. 
 Hewison in his Bute in the Olden Time, 
 unlike any other writer on the subject, 
 has written as though all the deeds of the 
 Brandani had been performed by the Bute 
 men alone, which is as unreasonable as it 
 would be to suppose that Wallace's remark 
 given by Blind Harry — "Good westland men 
 of Arran and Rauchle, if they be warned they 
 will all come to me," did not include in 
 Wallace's mind the men of Bute itself, who 
 with their Arran kinsmen and the men of 
 Fife had fought so splendidly at Falkirk. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF ARRAN 
 
 The original speech of Arran was, of course, 
 Gaelic, which was the common language of 
 conversation amongst the natives till some 
 thirty or forty years ago. That it is now 
 dying out, though still, of course, understood 
 and spoken, is greatly to be regretted, nay, 
 it is sad and shameful. Of course, until the 
 action of the Highland and Scottish Societies 
 of Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, and the 
 Colonies nothing was done for its encourage- 
 ment, but it has, after a long agitation, now 
 been placed by the Education Department 
 on the same footing as French, or Welsh, or 
 any other language. It remains for the High- 
 land people themselves to insist upon it being 
 properly taught to their children in the ele- 
 mentary schools. 
 
82 ARRAN 
 
 The excuse for neglecting it — the most 
 precious gift the Highlander has received 
 from his cultured ancestors of early Christian 
 times — was that it interfered with the teach- 
 ing of subjects of commercial value. This 
 supposition has been utterly disproved by 
 many years of actual experience of Welsh 
 teaching, in which it has been shown, as 
 admitted by inspectors, that, so far from the 
 bi-lingual children being behind the others, 
 they are invariably more intelligent, more alert, 
 more advanced generally. And, of course, 
 it is easy to see that it must be so, for the 
 English language is far less opulent, less 
 complex than the Keltic tongues, which are 
 more capable, therefore, of expressing fine 
 shades of thought and meaning. 
 
 The vocabulary of the English peasant 
 has been estimated to contain about 400 to 
 600 words. On the other hand a German 
 philologist. Dr. Finck, some years ago made 
 a study of the language of the Aran island- 
 ers on the spot. Dr. Finck took down no 
 less than 4000 words which he found occurring 
 in the daily speech of the inhabitants of that 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF ARRAN 8^ 
 
 remote Irish island. Dr. Douglas Hyde, 
 commenting on these investigations, wrote at 
 the time : "Is the Board so ignorant of its 
 own business that it does not know that 
 thought is conditioned by language, and that 
 they act and react upon one another so intim- 
 ately that a boy with a vocabulary of 4000 
 words will have many times more numerous 
 and more subtle ideas at his command than 
 a boy with only 500 ? " 
 
 It would be a sad disaster if the Gaelic 
 tongue were allowed to die out in Arran, but 
 this will certainly happen if the people of 
 the island, especially the younger men and 
 women, do not see that it is taught to their 
 children in the schools and used by them- 
 selves at home and abroad on every possible 
 occasion. 
 
 The people of Argyll, of Inverness-shire, 
 of Ross, and other Highland counties, have 
 long been working in the same direction, but, 
 so far as I am aware, nothing has as yet been 
 done in Arran. In Argyllshire, close by, 
 great things are being accomplished for its 
 advancement by the London Argyllshire 
 
84 ARRAN 
 
 Association and other societies, and the Duke 
 of Argyll, the late MacLaine of Lochbuie, 
 Mrs. Burnley -Campbell of Ormidale, and 
 many others, have given their hearty sym- 
 pathy and help in this duty, so important 
 intellectually and so patriotic. There is no 
 landmark of our fathers, no cairn, or fort, or 
 tower, or church, deep though its interest 
 may be, which is as important, none which 
 has so completely caught the mould of their 
 thoughts, their hopes, their aspirations, and 
 which can, therefore, be so sacred to their 
 sons and daughters as the language in which 
 they expressed their hearts. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST GAELIC 
 DICTIONARY I WILLIAM SHAW 
 
 Shaw, the compiler of the first dictionary 
 of the Gaelic language, was born at Clachaig, 
 in Kilmory parish, in 1749. He was sent 
 to school at Ayr, and was a graduate of 
 Glaso-ow. He went as tutor to London and 
 there met Dr. Johnson and other literary 
 lights. When he told Johnson of his 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF ARRAN 85 
 
 great scheme for making a collection of 
 Gaelic words, the old doctor heartily ap- 
 proved and actually drew up part of the 
 "Proposals" or prospectus. The Highland 
 people, however, did not respond, and Shaw 
 raised from ^200 to ;^300 from his own 
 property and started for the Highlands. 
 The parting words of Johnson were whole- 
 hearted, appreciative, and encouraging. 
 "Sir," he said, "if you give the world a 
 vocabulary of that language, while the island 
 of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean 
 your name will be mentioned," 
 
 This was in 1778; in the year following 
 Shaw entered the ministry. He, however, 
 had the dictionary at heart, and travelled 
 three thousand miles in Scotland and Ireland 
 in his efforts to make it complete. In 1780 
 his great work actually appeared in two 
 volumes. Owing to the unwillingness of 
 the Scottish peasants a considerable portion 
 of the words were collected in Ireland, where 
 the compiler was more generously received, 
 so that both Scots and Irish may remember 
 his name with gratitude. He also published 
 
86 ARRAN 
 
 his valuable Memoirs of the Life and Writ- 
 ings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and later, 
 among other things, Suggestions respecting a 
 Plan of National Education, and An Inquiry 
 into the Authenticity of the Poems ascribed 
 to Ossian. Of the reply to the critics of this 
 work Dr. Johnson wrote a part. Shaw died 
 at Chelvey, Somerset, in 183 1. 
 
 DANIEL MACMILLAN 
 
 Arran does not boast many literary men 
 amongst her sons, but she does boast one of 
 the most famous of publishers in Daniel 
 MacMillan, founder of the great firm of 
 MacMillan of London, who was born at 
 High Corrie in 18 13. He was the son of 
 Duncan MacMillan and his wife Katherine 
 Crawford, also an Arran woman. His grand- 
 father, Malcolm MacMillan, was Tacksman of 
 the Cock Farm, and was allied, we are told, to 
 the MacMillans of Sanquhar and Arndarroch, 
 Kirkcudbrightshire, though the names, like 
 Malcolm, Duncan, Neil, Donald, and Daniel 
 (which in the Highlands is generally a bad 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF ARRAN 87 
 
 attempt to Anglicisethe name Donald),suggest 
 the Argyllshire MacMillans. The family 
 were in Corrie and in North and Mid Sannox 
 in 1776. They intermarried with the Kelsos, 
 Crawfords, MacKenzies, and others in 
 Sannox, once a populous district. 
 
I.'i ■'■■■•■ '.■■',>■■' 
 
 
 '''W&:^"t-:^'i&i^m 
 
PART V 
 
 OUR EAKLY ANCESTORS IN 
 ARRAN 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ARRAN'S WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC 
 REMAINS 
 
 Arran is also peculiarly rich in prehistoric 
 remains, in ancient forts, stone circles, cham- 
 bered cairns, and the standing stones which 
 give so rare and weird a character to the 
 Highland landscape. Many more, it is to be 
 regretted, have been destroyed. Where were 
 many standing stones, now there is often left 
 but one, and the chambered graves have been 
 all more or less dismantled by rude hands. 
 
 Machrie Moor, over against Shisken, which 
 is believed to have been once a densely 
 populated district, is the chief site of these 
 profoundly interesting monuments. 
 
 Most, if not all, of the stone circles, such as 
 those we see in Arran, at Machrie, and other 
 places, and many of the single standing stones. 
 
92 ARRAN 
 
 are memorials of chieftains who have fallen 
 in the fight. This discovery was first made 
 by Mr, C. E. Dalrymple, from actual ex- 
 cavations below the monuments in Aberdeen- 
 shire and Kincardine, and the facts were 
 published by Stuart. Dr. James Bryce, of 
 Glasgow, followed these investigations up 
 by excavations on Machrie Moor, and found 
 corroboration of Mr. Dalrymple's statements. 
 As long ago as 1527 Boece says: "The 
 graves and sepulchres of our noblemen had 
 commonlie so many obelisks and speirs 
 pitched about them, as the deceased had 
 killed enemies before time in the field." 
 
 Similar stones were, as I have already 
 stated, set up to mark the marches of the 
 estates of the various chiefs. The right of 
 MacMillan to the estate of Knap in Argyll- 
 shire is cut in Gaelic upon the surface of a rock. 
 In the case of the Cat Stone near Edinburgh, 
 about which Sir James Young Simpson wrote, 
 the name, from the Gaelic Cat or Cath, is a 
 sufficient explanation of its origin. A similar 
 *' Cat," or Battle-Stone, marks the spot where 
 Somerled is said to have fallen near Houston 
 
WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS 93 
 
 in Renfrewshire, and the Tanist and King's 
 Stones commemorate great events or customs. 
 But nowhere else in the kingdom can there 
 be found, in the small space of twenty-four 
 miles by seven, such a wealth of prehistoric 
 remains as in Arran. Blackwaterfoot once 
 boasted the largest known prehistoric burial 
 mound, and the Arran skulls discovered by 
 the late Dr. James Bryce were the first in- 
 disputable examples of the Stone Age type 
 which had been found. Again, the ancient 
 graves, formed of square stone slabs set on 
 end and divided into small chambers and 
 roofed in by heavy stone slabs, such as were 
 found and may be seen at Whiting Bay, 
 at Dippen, Blairmore, at Kilmorie Water- 
 foot, in two places ; at Slidderie, Monamor, 
 Sannox, Shisken, Tormore, Moinechoill, 
 Dunan Beg, and Dunan More, Torlin, 
 and Clachaig, are of great interest. Dr. 
 Thomas H. Bryce says, in one of his lectures 
 on " Prehistoric Man and his Monuments in 
 the Island of Arran " : " Only at two localities 
 in Argyllshire have structures like these been 
 described in Scotland, and their place is 
 
94 ARRAN 
 
 determined by the study of the Arran 
 structures." Graves of this type ("mega- 
 Hthic") are called "chambered cairns," and 
 they were intended for many interments. 
 Some of the remains found in them show 
 signs of cremation, others of ordinary burial 
 in a sitting posture. 
 
 Besides these cairns there has been found 
 in Arran another type called the "short cist." 
 This is a single compartment, carefully formed 
 of stone slabs, and often surrounded by one 
 of the stone circles so picturesque and so im- 
 pressive, while sometimes a great cairn or 
 mound is erected over it. The short cist was 
 intended for the burial of only a single body 
 in the sitting posture. About fourteen of 
 these cists have been discovered in Arran at 
 South Feorline, Blackwaterfoot, Kilpatrick 
 (two), Clachaig, Cnocan a' Choilich, Glenkill, 
 Benlester Burn, Lamlash, Merkland Point, 
 North Sannox, Whitefarland, Auchancar, 
 Machrie Waterfoot, Dippen, Auchancairn. 
 Details of the excellent work done in excavat- 
 ingr these monuments is criven in The Book 
 of Arran, There will be found also a list of 
 
WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS 95 
 
 other ancient remains whose character is not 
 now clear, owing largely to vandalism prac- 
 tised upon them at various times. For it is 
 to be greatly regretted that the sacred char- 
 acter of these monuments has been sadly 
 overlooked or disregarded. It is to be hoped, 
 however, that the protest made by Mr. Balfour 
 in the book referred to will have effect. 
 
 Had it not been for the discovery of these 
 monuments, and the human remains and 
 ancient pottery they contained, we would now 
 know little about our early ancestors. They, 
 taken together with the discovery of similar 
 pottery and similar remains by English arch- 
 aeologists like Beddoe and Greenwell, and the 
 admirable work of Schmidt, Topinard, Broca, 
 and others on the Continent, with spade 
 and pen, linked up the archaeological chain. 
 For in the chambered cairns of Arran and 
 long barrows of England, and the dolmens 
 of France and Spain, they found a type of 
 skull and of pottery which were practically 
 identical with the remains in our chambered 
 cairns. In the single or short cist, and the 
 round barrows of England, they found a quite 
 
96 ARRAN 
 
 different type of skull and of pottery, and also 
 relics showing that the men of these burials 
 belonged to the Bronze Age at a date previous 
 to the Christian era, while the chambered 
 cairn and long barrow men proved to be of 
 a still earlier period. They also saw that 
 these earlier wanderers came from the south, 
 and spread from the Mediterranean lands 
 over a considerable part of Europe, includ- 
 ing England, the west of Scotland, and the 
 Hebrides ; that they were dark in type, and 
 short in stature. 
 
 THE ETHNOLOGY OF ARRAN 
 
 Could any romance be greater than this 
 unravelling of the tangled skein of history ? 
 But it is not quite all. Ethnology is hardly 
 yet a science, though it is now conducted 
 on scientific lines and is making rapid pro- 
 gress. Since ethnologists turned to the study 
 of craniology, or the shapes of skulls, they 
 found rock to build upon instead of the sand 
 on which they had relied when they set down 
 races and docketed them according to the 
 
WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS 97 
 
 language they spoke. If I may quote my 
 own words of ten years since : " The origin 
 and distribution of the races of Europe was 
 thought to have been settled by the Aryan 
 wave theory, which made out that the Keltic 
 people, including the Irish, Welsh, Scots, 
 Bretons, Picts, and British came over to 
 Europe from Asia in waves or droves, the 
 last comers pushing the first comers into the 
 mountainous districts. 
 
 " This theory had been almost universally 
 accepted till it fell under the lancet of the 
 anthropologist, when it was found to present 
 glaring defects, and difficulties which appeared 
 to many scholars to be insurmountable, and 
 so they have, through the labours of Schmidt, 
 Greenwell, Broca, Beddoe, Taylor, Huxley, 
 Ripley, and others, abandoned the philological 
 method for the anthropological one. 
 
 " Anthropology proves that language is not 
 by any means a sure test of race. On the 
 other hand, it is found that in the matter 
 of shape of skull, height, and colour, nature 
 is persistent, and that mixed races show a 
 tendency to atavism — to throw back to re- 
 7 
 
gS ARRAN 
 
 mote ancestors — ^just as they also blend and 
 make new types. It shows that in the pure 
 race there is one type and not two, that in 
 ancient interments the skulls are generally 
 either all broad or all long. And that, more- 
 over, where a small number of men settled 
 amongst a larger community, the tendency 
 was for the amalgamated race to revert to 
 the original type of the larger community in 
 shape of skull, size of body, and complexion. 
 
 "For example, the Anglo-Saxon played a 
 great part in the history of England ; yet it has 
 been pointed out years ago that men of the 
 true German type, with very light hair and 
 very pale blue eyes, are almost unknown in 
 England to-day."* And Dr.Thomas H. Bryce 
 has recently pointed out that the wave of 
 broad-headed people hardly touched the west, 
 and has left very little trace of its presence. 
 ** So that when we find many shapes of skull 
 and many complexions, etc., amongst a people, 
 we know that there is great mixture of race."* 
 
 The people of Arran are in the main 
 strikingly similar in shape of skull to the 
 
 * The Origin of the Lowlanders, 1900. 
 
WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS 99 
 
 types found in the ancient chambered 
 cairns of the island. Looking upon it 
 from above, the skull is a very long oval, 
 narrowing at both ends, at the forehead 
 and cerebullum, and widening out consider- 
 ably above the ears, the back part or 
 cerebullum being very prominent. Dr. 
 Bryce, in The Book of Arran, gives photo- 
 graphs of skulls of this type. So far as I 
 remember, they differ from those found by 
 Sir Daniel Wilson in Lothian and in Fife, 
 not in their length, but in tapering much 
 more towards the back and front, save in 
 one instance. The East Lothian and Fife- 
 shire specimens are almost square at the 
 four corners, but the Arran type is emphatic- 
 ally not so ; it is distinctly oval, and of 
 well-defined and symmetrical proportions. 
 The Arran man, as Paterson pointed out in 
 183 1, is generally dark, and despite the claims 
 of those who would discover evidences of 
 Norse blood in Arran, it is very difficult to 
 find there men of Norse type. We find, 
 of course, a not inconsiderable number of 
 men of the tall, white-skinned, red-cheeked, 
 
loo ARRAN 
 
 red-haired Scottish type, which is common 
 all over Scotland, but especially, it seems to 
 me, in the Perthshire district. We find 
 the tall, yellow-fair, long-headed Kymric, 
 or miscalled " Keltic " type, but the real 
 blonde of Norway, Sweden, and Germany 
 is most rare, if not quite unknown. The 
 Arran people are clearly representative of 
 the long-headed, dark man of the cham- 
 bered cairns, now called " Mediterranean." 
 Sir Daniel Wilson said a good many years 
 ago : " As to the early Scandinavian type, I 
 was led to conceive, contrary to the conclusion 
 of continental investigators — in relation to 
 Northern Europe — that the earliest Scottish, 
 and indeed British, race differed entirely 
 from that of Scandinavia, as defined by 
 Professor Wilson and others, being char- 
 acterised by markedly elongated and narrow 
 cranium, tapering equally towards the fore- 
 head and occiput. ..." 
 
 The difference between the very fine 
 skulls found in the MacArthur Cave at Oban 
 and the Arran skulls referred to is slight, the 
 Arran examples being, if anything, a little less 
 
WEALTH OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS loi 
 
 heavy, that is, finer, and more varied in out- 
 line. Both examples are distinctly longer 
 than the Norse skull of to-day, which is 
 round, mesaticephalic, or even brachycephalic, 
 seldom dolichocephalic. It also never shows 
 the tremendous development of the occiput 
 so notable in Scotland. The Norse are to- 
 day a very mixed people, and, so far as my 
 observation goes, Lapp characteristics ap- 
 pear in some members of most Norwegian 
 families. We find also very pure types in 
 the same families of the traditional and hand- 
 some Norseman, fair, and aquiline of nose. 
 Even this type is, I believe, nothing like so 
 long-skulled as the Arran heads of long ago, 
 or as the ordinary Scotsman, who is regarded 
 as possessing the longest head in Europe. 
 So I have been told by those who have 
 exceptional opportunities of making com- 
 parisons with foreign races. 
 
 It has been suggested that the red hair 
 arises from the contact of a dark and a fair 
 race ; but there seems to be something more 
 in it than that, something older, and sugges- 
 tive of a separate race which started from 
 
102 ARRAN 
 
 the beginning on different lines. The de- 
 scription of the "ruddy hair and large 
 limbs " of the Caledonian, written by Tacitus 
 about the year 97 a.d., would do admirably 
 for the big men we see to-day so often in the 
 market-place at Perth, or less frequently 
 in the Arran lanes, and, though contact 
 might bring us some specimens of a type, 
 Tacitus' reference was clearly to a whole race 
 who were more or less of that description. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ANCIENT FORTS AND CAMPS 
 
 Nothing impresses one so much with the 
 fact of the former importance of Arran, owing 
 to the very central position it occupied 
 between the various tribes who had settled 
 in prehistoric times on the mainland or on the 
 islands around, than the green mounds which 
 mark the remains of its wonderful chain of 
 camps, forts, or dunes. In these the natives 
 kept watch over the dividing seas for white 
 sailed boat or narrow canoe or coracle, and 
 when they saw the invading force it was to 
 such great camps as that of Drumadoon or 
 Glen Eas (Ashdale), or Tor Caisteal they 
 brought their women and their other wealth. 
 They belong to the greater fortresses of the 
 coast, but besides these, everywhere, in 
 every glen, there were small forts from 
 
104 ARRAN 
 
 behind whose walls no doubt arrows could be 
 shot in safety at the enemy who dared to 
 enter these fastnesses. From them in every 
 case, I know, a view is obtained of the entire 
 glen. A good example is that in Glen Cloy, 
 in which Bruce is said to have kept watch 
 for the soldiers of Edward. From it one 
 can see the whole of the glen. At the point 
 at which Glen Easbuig and Glen an't Suidhe 
 meet, to the north of the Shisken road, is the 
 site of another fort which must have com- 
 manded a splendid view of the Vale of Shisken. 
 
 DRUMADOON 
 
 Of the greater forts, that of Drumadoon 
 is by far the most interesting. Splendidly 
 situated on the sea cliffs some 200 ft. above 
 the beach, its features can still be made out. 
 Its wall, 10 ft. in thickness, protected a space 
 of some acres in extent. Its commanding 
 position and its excellent defences rendered 
 it impregnable, and a safe sheltering place for 
 the whole district of Waterfoot, which must 
 have been, from its flatness, so exposed to the 
 assaults of enemies from over seas. 
 
'^m 
 
 i-.t'?':»' 
 
 
 
ANCIENT FORTS AND CAMPS 105 
 
 TOR CAISTEAL 
 
 The next link in the chain of coast de- 
 fences is Tor Caisteal, near Sliddery, a few 
 miles farther south. This fort is circular, and 
 160 ft. in circumference, its walls were some 
 6 ft. thick, and the approach to its entrance 
 was protected by a smaller fort or outwork. 
 The hill on which the castle was built is said 
 to be artificial. The men who constructed 
 it showed skill and intelligence, which prove 
 them to have been far above the condition of 
 mere savages. 
 
 GLEN ASHDALE 
 
 The fort or camp of Glen Ashdale occupied 
 a fine position overlooking the great glen. 
 The walls showed a thickness of 25 ft, and 
 were formed of huge sandstone and granite 
 blocks skilfully put together, and enclosing a 
 space of 290 ft. or thereabouts. The glen 
 itself is in point of richness of foliage and the 
 splendid colour of the sandstone cliffs exceed- 
 ingly fine, and very different in character to 
 the wild glens of the north. The waterfall 
 is the highest in the island. 
 
io6 ARRAN 
 
 king's cross 
 
 At King's Cross, close to the monolith 
 which, tradition says, commemorates the 
 embarkation of Bruce and his followers for 
 the Carrick coast, is the site of a small round 
 fort, 15 ft. in diameter, behind which the 
 natives could no doubt defend the landing- 
 place. 
 
 DUN FION 
 
 Dun Fion, on the other side of Lamlash Bay, 
 was one of the island's chief defences, like 
 Tor Coille. It stands some 600 ft. above sea- 
 level, on the hill above Clauchlands Point, 
 and its wall of 5 ft. in thickness enclosed a 
 space of 140 ft. The walls are said to have 
 showed signs of vitrefaction, which, Sir George 
 MacKenzie suggested, was caused by the 
 beacon fires lit in these forts from time to 
 time. The walls being composed of porphyry 
 and sandstone would, it was suggested, be 
 fused by a very moderate heat. As a look-out 
 station, the position of Dun Fion is one of 
 the best in the island. No hostile galley 
 could approach from north or east without 
 
ANCIENT FORTS AND CAMPS 107 
 
 being noticed, and when the help of others was 
 needed the beacon from Dun Fion could 
 be seen far and wide, at the small fort at 
 King's Cross to the south, at the great one 
 by Brodick and the small one of Springfield 
 to the north. From these would leap up 
 similar beacon fires to warn the good folk all 
 round the island, and across at Carradale and 
 Dalaruan in Kintyre and Bute, whence the 
 kinsmen of the islanders, and the Somerledian 
 chiefs, could send them aid. 
 
 CRAIG NA CUIROCH 
 
 Out of the great fort of Brodick rose the 
 historic castle which has been, I believe, 
 oftener attacked and burnt than any fortress 
 of the West Highlands. From Brodick the 
 next fort, going north, is theoldoneoverlooking 
 Sannox Bay, and from there the coast needed 
 no defence, being so precipitous, till we reach 
 Loch Ranza, and find the remains of the great 
 fort on Craigf na Cuiroch. The defence of a 
 place like Ranza must have been compara- 
 tively easy ; indeed, it must have been im- 
 possible for an enemy to approach it, for the 
 
io8 ARRAN 
 
 natives could assail the invaders from the 
 surrounding hills. 
 
 The real weakness of Arran lay in the 
 Machrie Moor and Shisken districts, where 
 landing was easy, and the wide plain was 
 difficult to defend with a small force. The 
 interior of the island would, however, afford 
 a succession of death-traps to any troops, and 
 it is pretty certain that they were seldom if 
 ever assailed by the Norsemen or any other 
 invaders, and certainly never held by them. 
 The purely Gaelic character of the place- 
 names of these parts, save in one or two great 
 passes like that of Glen Hamad el, corroborate 
 this conclusion. 
 
 TORNANSCHIAN 
 
 The list of forts, small and large, is by no 
 means exhausted, showing clearly that the 
 island was well populated and strongly held 
 in old times. So strong were the defences 
 that the old duns were probably in use for 
 a thousand years, each succeeding generation 
 finding them of service, just as the followers 
 of Bruce found Tornanschian, the "stalwart 
 
ANCIENT FORTS AND CAMPS 109 
 
 place " in Glen Cloy, useful at need. It was 
 undoubtedly a strong place ; even as late as 
 1772 Pennant says: "A mile beyond Kil- 
 michael is Tornanschian Castle, surrounded 
 by a great stone dike. Here Robert Bruce 
 sheltered himself for some time." Pennant 
 also saw " five earthen tumuli there in a row, 
 with another outside of them. On that of 
 another is a circle of stones, whose ends just 
 appear above the earth. Probably," he adds, 
 " the memorials of some battle." 
 
 In the fifteenth century we hear of the 
 Arran lairds strengthening the defences of the 
 island on account of the raids of the Kintyre 
 clans. It is probable that the old forts at 
 Drumadoon and Torcastle, Glen Ashdale 
 and Dun Fion, were then still in use. 
 
PART VI 
 
 ARRAN— THE BATTLE-GROUND 
 OF THE VIKING AGE 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 
 
 It is unfortunate that, owing to their stormy 
 history and the loss of their records, but per- 
 haps far more to the neglect and suppression 
 of the native lanpfuaore in the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, the history of the 
 Western Highlands and Islands, which has 
 been of so stirring a character, has not and 
 perhaps cannot be fully written. 
 
 Assuredly no greater misfortunes could 
 have happened to the Gaelic people of the 
 West Highlands, advanced as they were 
 in the arts, skilled in the manufacture of 
 beautiful cloths, in the carving of fine monu- 
 ments ; in the illuminating of the most 
 beautiful missals and manuscripts the world 
 can boast ; steeped as they were to the 
 lips in the progressive spirit of the new 
 
114 ARRAN 
 
 Christian religion, than to have been sub- 
 merged by hordes of destructive ruffians ; 
 and later to have been associated with a 
 race of kings partly alien in blood and 
 wholly alien in spirit. It was a calamity 
 that, under the monstrous idea that it was 
 a superior civilisation, those rulers should 
 have forced upon them the feudal system, 
 than which the mind of man never invented 
 a more wicked and ingenious device for 
 keeping his fellow-man in subjection. 
 
 It is true that Scotland, only in parts and 
 to a limited extent, fell in any real sense 
 under the black hand of feudalism. In law, 
 however, it did so, and the assumption that 
 every breach of it was wrongful plunged 
 Scotland, especially in the non-feudalised 
 parts, into endless trouble and disaster. It 
 was largely because of it that the High- 
 lands and the Border districts, differing little 
 from them, like the district of Galloway, 
 were inevitably rebels against a system that 
 was not theirs, which was infinitely inferior 
 to their own system, and which was at no 
 time understood by them. Their rebellion has 
 
ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 115 
 
 lasted for all these centuries and exists to-day, 
 as a glance at the recent history of the land 
 question in the Highlands will show. 
 
 Without remembering these facts it is 
 quite impossible to understand the history of 
 Arran, or of any other island of the Hebrides, 
 or of the mainland Highland districts. It 
 was the Norsemen of France, who came in 
 Malcolm's and King David's train, who first 
 brouorht us feudalism, and did something- to 
 convert the freeman of the South of Scotland 
 into a serf. The feudal lords were often 
 mere adventurers from the Continent, like 
 the Baliols and the Bruces and the Hastings 
 who claimed the crown of Alexander, or Eng- 
 lishmen whose real interest was in the south, 
 and they showed clearly in the War of In- 
 dependence that they would have preferred 
 the splendid chains of Edward to independ- 
 ence under a Scottish monarch. As the 
 contemporary Englishman who wrote the 
 Chronicle of Lanercost puts it : 
 
 "... the greater part were for England, 
 probably to save their lands there, for their 
 hearts were with their property." 
 
ii6 ARRAN 
 
 THE CHRISTIANS OF lONA 
 
 The Norse incursions commenced, so far as 
 we know, on the west coast of Scotland 
 about the middle of the ninth century or 
 possibly earlier, but the true Viking era was 
 caused by the revolt of the independent 
 chieftains of Norway against the attempt of 
 Harald Harfaager (the fairhaired) to con- 
 quer Norway and make himself a great 
 kingdom. This he succeeded in accomplish- 
 ing about the year 888. The best of the 
 chiefs made for Iceland, which they colonised 
 and cultivated, probably absorbing the small 
 bands of Gaelic monks and settlers they 
 found there. The rest took to the galleys 
 and commenced their attacks upon the coasts 
 of their own country of Norway, and probably 
 of Sweden and Denmark, and made their ap- 
 pearance in the islands of Orkney and Shet- 
 land, which they conquered and colonised. 
 
 It was then they made their first attempt 
 upon the Dalriadic settlers in Argyll, and the 
 South Isles, who had done so much to graft 
 the hiofher civilisation of Ireland on to the 
 
ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 117 
 
 life of their kindred in the West Highlands 
 during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth 
 centuries. The headquarters of their king- 
 dom was Dalaruan, which we now know as 
 Campbeltown in Kintyre, and not far away, 
 in lona, their countryman, St. Colum or 
 Columba, had carried on his great work of 
 Christianising the west. Many devoted men 
 followed in his footsteps. 
 
 With the coming of Harald the Fair- 
 haired to punish his rebellious subjects for 
 their harrying of his coasts, we get upon some- 
 what firmer ground, though we must allow a 
 little always for the bombastical style of the 
 Saga writers. Harald swept down upon the 
 Southern Hebrides about the year 888, and, 
 after catching the rebels and utterly defeat- 
 ing them in the great battle of Hafursfiord, 
 he laid his heavy hand upon the islands in 
 which they had taken refuge from his rule, 
 and completely subdued them, from Shetland 
 and the Orkneys to the South Isles, where 
 he had many battles. His countrymen who 
 had settled in the isles made their escape to 
 Iceland, and there went with them a consider- 
 
m8 ARRAN 
 
 able number of the islanders, whose Gaelic 
 names, like Nial and Cormac are notable in 
 the Icelandic Sagas. 
 
 From the time of Harald until 1256 the 
 Norse sovereignty over the Orkneys and 
 Shetlands was unbroken, but their tenure of 
 the South Isles was less secure. There, as 
 Professor MacKinnon says, the native chiefs 
 disputed supremacy with the Norse magnates. 
 It is notable that the only Norse literature 
 worthy of the name was produced by the 
 mixed breed of Icelanders and Kelts. 
 
 THE VALE OF SHISKEN AND MACHRIE 
 MOOR 
 
 In all these doings it is probable that Arran 
 played a prominent part. It was directly 
 opposite the capital of the Dalriadic king- 
 dom, and the great and fertile vales of Shis- 
 ken and Machrie lent themselves to the 
 cultivation of the arts of peace which were 
 common amongst the Dalriadic people. 
 There is no doubt that at one time the great 
 plain was a populous and busy place, where 
 
ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 119 
 
 hammers rang out on the evening stillness, 
 and spinners and spinsters wrought fine 
 cloths, and masons carved fair crosses and 
 stones with the rich and lovely interlaced 
 patterns which belonged to our forefathers, 
 and are part of the neglected inheritance 
 they left us. In this great plain we still 
 find in unequalled abundance the monuments 
 and the burial-places of Pict and Scot and 
 Norseman, and of the men of the remoter 
 Stone and Bronze Ages, from whom we are 
 also unquestionably descended. There was 
 no place in Scotland which, until half a 
 century ago, was so rich in these monuments 
 as Machrie Moor. 
 
 Undoubtedly, then, Arran was the battle- 
 ground during the Norse period, when its 
 exposed position, and the considerable civilisa- 
 tion it had attained owing to this close contact 
 with the Dalriadic kingdom for some five 
 hundred years, made it a rich prey for the 
 hungry subjects of Harald. It is, however, a 
 mistake to assume, as has been done, that be- 
 cause the Norsemen came here they settled 
 and so left their blood behind them. It was 
 
I20 ARRAN 
 
 specially agreed at the time of the cession of 
 the island by Magnus in 1265 that such 
 subjects of Norway as wished to leave the 
 Hebrides should have liberty to do so, with 
 all their effects. And at other periods the 
 Norsemen probably left, owing to the pressure 
 of the Gaels of Somerled. It has been 
 stated that the Norse type of face and skull 
 is common in the island. To me it seems 
 to be distinctly rare. The familiar Scottish 
 tall red type is seen, but far commoner is the 
 dark, long-headed, blue-grey and brown- 
 eyed type, and the children are notably 
 darker haired than in Kintyre. In my 
 observation, the Arran man is much 
 darker than the Norseman or the main- 
 land Scotsman, and distinctly longer-headed 
 than the mesaticephalic Norse. He is prob- 
 ably rather a blend between the aboriginal, 
 dark, long-headed type of the early pre- 
 historic races whose unearthed skulls his own 
 head so greatly resembles, and the red and 
 fair Scottish types who came and conquered at 
 a later date, and who spoke the Keltic tongue. 
 It is a mistake to suppose, as those who are 
 
, ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 121 
 
 urging so vigorously the claims of the Norse 
 are in danger of doing, that all the fair races 
 of the world hailed originally from Norway ! 
 
 The Norwegian of to-day is one of the 
 most trusty and respectable men in Europe, 
 and his influence is excellent, but his ancestors 
 were the very opposite. Their influence was 
 amongst the worst, the least fruitful of good 
 that Europe has known, and the Norseman 
 has himself, until the past twenty years, been 
 glad to forget them and give his sons and 
 daughters names of German origin instead 
 of the old names of the Sagas. 
 
 The attacks of the Scandinavian races, 
 we are told, from the time of the half- 
 mythical Ragnar Lodbrog in 856, occurred 
 with "fearful frequency." They were not, 
 of course, confined to the West of Scotland ; 
 England, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and 
 Russia were all sufferers. The Swedes 
 directed their attacks mostly to Russia, the 
 Danes to England, and the " Norroway men," 
 with their smaller numbers and consequent 
 inability to march inland and conquer a 
 hostile country, aimed at Scotland. Where 
 
122 ARRAN 
 
 innumerable water-ways and lochs made 
 it easy for them to keep close under the 
 protection of their ships, and enabled them 
 to move with the utmost speed attainable 
 in those days, speed which was utterly im- 
 possible for land troops in a mountainous 
 region like Scotland. 
 
 The Rev. George Henderson, of Glasgow, 
 and others have endeavoured to show that 
 the Norsemen were able to make consider- 
 able settlements ; but, keeping in mind the 
 smallness of the population of their country, 
 the heavy death-roll amongst a people whose 
 hands were against all the world, and the 
 fact that their very occupation necessitated 
 their absence on the sea, it is difficult to 
 believe that they settled in a real sense or in 
 any numbers. They probably owed their 
 strength and the terror of their name, as I 
 have already suggested, to their power of 
 concentration, which enabled them to deal 
 with any great coalition in overwhelming 
 force, rather than to their actual settlements. 
 So that the dread of their power brought 
 security to those few whom they could spare 
 
ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 123 
 
 to garrison their forts or towers along the bays 
 and harbours in which they sheltered from 
 the storms, or collected their spoils. There 
 seems to be little doubt that they acted as 
 overlords in this manner, and, inducing the 
 natives to join them, they often became allies 
 and allowed the native chiefs to remain in 
 power, as is shown by records, for example, in 
 the case of Galloway. 
 
 The Gaels, who joined forces in this way 
 with them, are believed to be referred to in the 
 famous name of Gallgall, or Stranger Gael, 
 given to the people of the Southern Isles by 
 the Irish annalists in the ninth century, or 
 earlier possibly. But this is by no means 
 certain, for any Gael separated from Ireland 
 would be a stranger Gael. A tribe speaking 
 their Gaelic with a slightly different accent or 
 dialect would be marked men, just as an 
 Aberdonian in the Clyde district, or a 
 Lancastrian is in London to-day. On the 
 other hand, it is difficult to believe that Gaels 
 of any kind who had been Christians for 
 some four hundred years would join with the 
 heathen Norse in sacking the island of lona, 
 
124 ARRAN 
 
 which was invaded and devastated and its 
 monks slain by them, according to the annals 
 of Ulster, in the year 794. The names of 
 the Gall Gael chiefs given from time to 
 time are indisputably Gaelic, and the alterna- 
 tive is to suppose they had reverted to 
 paganism under the teaching of their over- 
 lords and conquerors. Probably not till we 
 awaken to the importance of a thorough 
 investigation of the vast number of historical 
 documents which are still preserved in 
 Ireland, Scotland, and Wales will we be able 
 to disentangle the extraordinary medley of 
 fact and myth and fable and utter misconcep- 
 tion which now makes up this part of our 
 early history. 
 
 Assuredly we have no cause to boast of 
 the Norsemen who have been so long and so 
 foolishly idolised in England and Scotland. 
 Their doings have been much exaggerated ; 
 they left us little or nothing in exchange for 
 the civilisation they destroyed. As Mr. A. H. 
 Johnson says : " The Northmen never seem 
 to have been original, never to have invented 
 anything ; rather they readily assumed the 
 
ARRAN IN THE VIKING AGE 125 
 
 language, religion, ideas of their adopted 
 country, and soon became absorbed in the 
 society around them. This will be found to 
 be invariably the case, except with regard to 
 Iceland, where the previous occupation was 
 too insignificant to affect the new settlers. 
 In Russia they became Russians ; in France, 
 Frenchmen; in Italy, Italians; in England, 
 twice over Englishmen, first in the case of 
 the Danes, and secondly in that of the later 
 Normans. Everywhere they became fused 
 in the surrounding nationality. ..." Again 
 he says, " They borrow everything and make 
 it their own." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE ARRAN MEN AT THE BATTLE OF 
 BRUNANBURH 
 
 THE FLEET IN LAMLASH BAY 
 
 Of great interest is the fact that the 
 Sudreyar, as the men of Arran and the rest 
 of the Southern Hebrides were called by 
 the Norse, joined the King of Alban, Con- 
 stantine iii., in his great battle with the 
 Saxons under the famous King Athelstane in 
 937 A.D. The leader of the islanders was 
 Anlaf, or Aulaf, king of the Gall Gael. The 
 Anglo-Saxon poem, " The Battle of Brunan- 
 burh,"and the ChroniclerstellhowConstantine, 
 after gathering his forces in Lamlash Bay, met 
 the forces of Athelstane in the river Humber ; 
 but from Lamlash to the Humber is a far cry 
 when the journey is made by slow galleys, and 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 127 
 
 there is no doubt that the battle really took 
 place somewhere in Cumberland or Wales or 
 Lancashire, sites having been suggested in 
 all these places. The defeat of Constantine 
 seems to have been complete. The poem 
 describing the fight reaches the high water- 
 mark of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It has spirit, 
 and the graphic quality springing from im- 
 aginative power, a quality which is generally 
 lacking in the literature of the Saxons. The 
 description of Constantine, " the old warrior," 
 helped by the characteristic repetitions, rises 
 by a sort of cumulative process to the 
 tremendous crescendo note reached in the 
 three concluding lines of the following 
 passage : — 
 
 " So there eke the sage Constantine, 
 hoary warrior, came by flight to his country north. 
 He had no cause to exult in the meeting of swords. 
 
 The hero, grizzly-haired, had no cause to boast 
 
 of the bill-clashing, the old deceiver : 
 
 nor Anlaf the more, with the remnant of their armies ; 
 
 they had no cause to boast that they in war's works 
 
 the better men were in the battle stead, 
 
 at the conflict of banners, at the meeting of spears, 
 
 at the concourse of men, at the traffic of weapons ; 
 
 when they on the slaughter field 
 
 with Edward's offspring played." 
 
128 ARRAN 
 
 The references to the islanders who took so 
 prominent a part in the battle are several — 
 
 " The foe they crushed, the Scottish people ; 
 and the ship-pirates, death-doomed, fell." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " There was made flee the North-men's chieftain." 
 
 My quotation is from Thrupp's excellent 
 translation. 
 
 The "Scottish people" are, of course, the 
 Irish under Anlaf, who was also the leader of 
 the men from Orkney and the north, and of 
 the Hebrid Islanders, the Gall Gael, or "sea- 
 pirates." 
 
 The battle was not, as has been supposed, 
 a race conflict, as Mr. York Powell points out. 
 "The Annals of Clonmacnois" say that the 
 Sudreyar were led by their king Gealachan, 
 and the conflict was between them allied 
 with the Scots under Anlaf, the Cumbrians, 
 and Vikings of the west, and Athelstane. 
 
 Later in the same century Arran and the 
 rest of the Sudereys once more were captured 
 and incorporated in the Orcadian earldom by 
 Sigurd, who left his brother Gilli as his captain ; 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 129 
 
 but Gilli was soon overthrown by Coinneach, 
 brother of the King of Man. 
 
 At the great battle of Clontarf, of which the 
 Irish annahsts make so much, the men of the 
 South Isles were also present ; we are told 
 that there was an " immense army from Innis- 
 gall," and their king Aulaf, or Anlaf, was 
 amongst the many kings and great warriors 
 slain in this fight, which broke for ever 
 the dominion of the Scandinavian races in 
 Ireland. The men of the South Isles, being 
 still under their Norse allies, fought on the 
 side of the foreigners against their Scoto- 
 Irish kinsmen. 
 
 Thorfin, the famous Jarl of Orkney, was a 
 little later able to overawe Scotland, even if 
 he did not actually conquer it, so that only 
 Strathclyde, Fife, and the Lothians were able 
 to keep him out. It is probable, however, 
 that, as the late Mr. York Powell says, his 
 dominion meant little more than that he took 
 tribute and was recognised as overlord. 
 Before his death in 1074 Thorfinn visited 
 Rome, and adopted the Christian faith. On 
 his death the mixed Norsemen or Danes of 
 9 
 
I30 ARRAN 
 
 Ireland revolted and invaded the coasts 
 of Alban, and Diarmid MacMaelnambo of 
 Dublin came down upon the Hebrides and 
 made himself their king. His successor, 
 Fingal MacGodred, was defeated by Godred 
 Crovan, who also made himself king of Dublin. 
 Godred had a curiously chequered history, and 
 is claimed by Professor Gollancz as the 
 original of Shakespeare's Hamlet. 
 
 MAGNUS BAREFOOT 
 
 Magnus Barefoot, or Bareleg, was one of 
 the most picturesque of all the many Norse- 
 men who vexed the much-harried Hebrides, 
 and he is the only one who lives to-day in 
 legends still current amongst the people. The 
 Norwegians had recently suffered utter defeat 
 at the famous battle of Stamford Bridge from 
 the Saxons under Harold, who were destined 
 to supersede them as masters of the sea, and 
 Magnus, who became king, entered into a 
 treaty with Malcolm Canmore of Alban by 
 which all the islands (which did not, by the 
 way, belong to Malcolm) were ceded to 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 131 
 
 Norway. Magnus soon gave the islanders a 
 taste of his quality, he was no mean soldier, 
 and became their master. 
 
 Kintyre has always been included in the 
 Hebrides ; the capital of the old Dalriadic 
 kingdom, its civilisation had been far in 
 advance of the neighbouring islands, and its 
 strategical position had rendered it of supreme 
 importance. It was, therefore, always the 
 most prized possession : under the treaty with 
 Malcolm or Edgar it fell naturally to Magnus, 
 but a legend which has done much to keep 
 Magnus's name alive was invented, to the 
 effect that, in order to make it rank amongst 
 the islands ceded to him, he cheated Edgar 
 by drawing his galleys over the narrow neck 
 of land which connects it with the mainland 
 of Argyll at Loch Tarbert. This was on 
 Magnus's second visit in the year 1098. It 
 was, of course, quite a common thing to draw 
 the light-built galleys of the time across spits 
 of land which divided loch from loch or sea 
 from sea. It is said by Fordun that Donald 
 Bane, the brother of Malcolm, was helped in 
 his seizure of the throne of Scotland by 
 
132 ARRAN 
 
 Magnus, and that as a reward he ceded the 
 islands to him, and it is possible that this is 
 the correct story. It is not of much import- 
 ance to this narrative, but it is certain that 
 Malcolm Canmore, that doughty warrior, was 
 slain during his invasion of England in 1093, 
 the year of Magnus's first visit to the Hebrides, 
 and of Donald Bane's seizure of his brother's 
 throne. 
 
 Magnus it waswho, on his return toNorway, 
 introduced the Highland dress amongst his 
 people . . . "the king and his followers," 
 according to the Saga of the famous Icelander, 
 Sturleson, " went about the streets with bare 
 legs, and wore short coats and cloaks." It 
 was from this incident that the king received 
 his name of " Barefoot," so says Worsaae. 
 
 The terror of the second visit of Magnus 
 in 1098 still survives in the legends of the 
 island of Lewis, for the Lewis men, having 
 been infamously used by his representative in 
 the island, rose and slew him and the loose and 
 dissolute crowd by whom he was supported. 
 Magnus thereupon swept down upon the 
 Lewis and burnt and slew without mercy, as 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 133 
 
 was his usual way on these occasions, only 
 this seems to have been a peculiarly terrible 
 and searching visitation. He passed on to 
 the Sudereys, and utterly crushed out any 
 sparks of revolt he could find, and there he 
 spent the winter, and walked about amongst 
 the natives clad in their own picturesque and 
 well-loved costume. It is said that the kilt 
 was a common dress in Norway for a century 
 after his time. 
 
 The death of Magnus brought back to the 
 throne of the South Isles the son of Godred 
 Crovan, Lagman, who after a few years went 
 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
 Donald MacFad, of the Irish Scots, was made 
 governor, until Olave, the remaining son of 
 Godred Crovan, came to manhood. This 
 Olave, King of Man and the Isles, grew to 
 be a person of some note. He had been sent 
 to the Court of William Rufus and Henry of 
 England for his education, and proved a wise 
 and diplomatic ruler. His son, Godred the 
 Black, was a tyrant, whose raids upon the 
 coasts around his home aroused the men of 
 Morvern, and brought forth the man who was 
 
134 ARRAN 
 
 to make the beCTinninor of the end of Norse 
 
 o o 
 
 power on the western coast. This was Som- 
 hairle, translated into Norse as " Somerled " ; 
 his father Gillibride was known as GilHbride 
 nan Uaimh, or Gillibride of the Cave, his sister 
 had married a daughter of King Harold of 
 Norway. The legend goes that the old chief 
 was driven by the oppression of the Norse- 
 men to seek shelter in a cave of Morvern, for 
 the invaders held not only the isles but 
 Lochaber and great part of Argyll. Skene 
 says that Gillibride was of purely Gaelic origin, 
 and was the great-grandson of Imergi, one of 
 two kings Maelbethad and Imergi, mentioned 
 by the Saxon Chronicle as having submitted 
 to King Knut in 103 1. It seems probable 
 that they were representatives of the old kings 
 of Dalriada. If this were so, it would be easy 
 to understand that Gillibride was then in 
 hiding, and that his young son should lead the 
 men of Morvern against the men of Olave. 
 According to the tradition, his first success 
 was in conducting the clan MacAongais or 
 Maclnnes out of the field in a masterly 
 manner, after the utter defeat of the Argyll- 
 
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH 135 
 
 shire men. The Maclnneses, it is interestina 
 to remember, as confirmation of this old tradi- 
 tion, claim descent from Somerled's brother 
 Auradan.* Encouraged by the discovery of 
 so skilful a leader, the men of Morvern 
 decided to try once again to throw off the 
 Norse yoke, and appointed Somhairle their 
 captain. 
 
 * The Clan Donald, by Rev. A. and J. Macdonald ; also 
 Skene. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SOMERLED, THE HAMMER OF THE 
 NORSEMEN 
 
 If Edward i. was, as he himself said, the 
 hammer of the Scots, Somerled was certainly 
 the hammer of the Norsemen. Justice has 
 hardly yet been done to the great work he 
 did in putting an end to the encroachments 
 of the Norsemen on the mainland of 
 Scotland, and in expelling them from Loch- 
 aber and Argyll, and secondly in making the 
 conquest of the isles of Arran and Bute by 
 David, who followed his lead, permanent and 
 successful. His alliance with the daughter 
 of the Norse leader Olave, king of the Isles, 
 was another instance of the statesmanlike 
 policy of the greatest of the old Highland 
 chiefs. He alone it was who made it 
 
 possible for the later Scottish kings to obtain 
 
 136 
 

 
 
 '^' 
 
 'MiMi^::'yf:M::fM 
 
THE HAMMER OF THE NORSEMEN 137 
 
 a foothold in the west, where danger had 
 threatened for so many centuries from the 
 overwhelming sea power of Norway. His 
 conquests made in Argyll, on the mainland, 
 far more than the desultory victories of the 
 Scottish kings, made a united Scotland 
 possible. The help afforded to Bruce by 
 Somerled's grandson, Angus Oig of Kintyre, in 
 the darkest hour of his fortunes, again, made 
 it possible for that king, with a fuller know- 
 ledge and wider perspective than were pos- 
 sible to Somerled, to build permanently upon 
 these great beginnings. As the authors of 
 The History of the Clan Donald say — 
 
 " Somerled was more than a warrior. He 
 possessed not only the courage and dash 
 which are associated with the Celtic char- 
 acter ; he had the organising brain, the 
 fertile resource, the art not only of winning 
 battles, but of turning them to account ; that 
 sovereign faculty of commanding the respect 
 and allegiance of men which marks the true 
 king. Without the possession of this im- 
 perial capacity he could never, in the face of 
 such tremendous odds, have wrested the 
 
138 ARRAN 
 
 sovereignty of the Gael from his hereditary 
 foes, and handed it to the Clan Cholla to be 
 their inheritance for hundreds of years. He 
 was the instrument by which the position, 
 the power, the language of the Gael were 
 saved from being overwhelmed by Teutonic 
 influence, and Celtic culture and tradition 
 received a new lease of life. He founded a 
 family which played no ignoble part in 
 Scottish history. If our faith in the principle 
 of heredity is sometimes shaken by degener- 
 ate sons of noble sires, when the last links of 
 a line of long ago prove unworthy heirs of a 
 great past, our faith is confirmed in it by the 
 line of Princes that sat upon the Island 
 throne, who as a race were stamped with the 
 heroic qualities which characterised the son 
 of Gillibride. Somerled's life struggle had 
 been with the power of the Norseman, whose 
 sun in the Isles he saw on the eve of setting. 
 But he met his tragic fate in conflict with 
 another and more formidable set of forces. 
 This was the contest which Somerled be- 
 queathed as a legacy to his successors. It 
 was theirs to be the leading spirits in the 
 
THE HAMMER OF THE NORSEMEN 139 
 
 resistance of the Gaelic race, language, and 
 social life, to the new and advancing order 
 which was already moulding into an organic 
 unity the various nationalities of Scotland — 
 the ever-increasing, ever-extending power of 
 feudal institutions." 
 
 According to Hugh Macdonald's MS. 
 Somerled was a " well-tempered man, in body 
 shapely, of a fair piercing eye, of middle 
 stature, and of quick discernment." His 
 leadership was entirely successful, and his 
 victory was, as Gregory puts it, " the begin- 
 ning of the ruin of the Norse Kingdom of 
 the Isles." The Gaels from all parts crowded 
 to his banner, and he wrested Argyll and 
 Lochaber from the grip of the Norsemen. 
 And there, in this land of grey hills and green 
 waters, he " made a realm and reigned." 
 
 In the Book of Ballymote Somhairle's 
 pedigree is given as " Somerled, son of Gille- 
 brigde, son of Gilliadamnain, son of Solaimh, 
 son of Imergi." But the Book of Clanranald 
 takes us back several steps further. It gives 
 " Somerled, son of Giollabride, son of Giollia- 
 damnain, son of Solomh, son of Mearghach 
 
HO ARRAN 
 
 or Imergi, son of Suibhne, son of Niallghus, 
 son of Gothfruigh, son of Fearghus, of the 
 reign of Kenneth MacAlpin." 
 
 There can be no doubt that the success of 
 Somerled in clearing the Norsemen out of 
 '* the western side of Alban, except the 
 islands of the Finlochlann, called Innisgall," 
 as the Book of Clanranald puts it, relieved 
 the anxieties of the Scottish King David, 
 who was unable to cope with the great power 
 of the Norwegians on his coasts, and doubtless 
 felt that their encroachments on the mainland 
 were a still more serious menace to his king- 
 dom. He, however, took heart and followed 
 Somerled's victory by capturing from the 
 Norsemen the islands of Arran and Bute in 
 1 135, some two years later. These he conferred 
 upon the victorious Somhairle, and allowed him 
 to annex them to the " Kingdom of Argyll," 
 of which he was, it is generally admitted, the 
 hereditary king or chief. By this statesman- 
 like policy of David the kingdom of the 
 Southern Hebrides became a kind of buffer 
 state between the kingdom of Alban and the 
 Norse Vikings of the Northern or Outer 
 
THE HAMMER OF THE NORSEMEN 141 
 
 Hebrides and Orkney. It also healed the old 
 quarrel between the descendants of Malcolm, 
 who had made alliance with Magnus Bare- 
 foot, that arch enemy of the Innse Gall, and 
 at the same time split any minor alliances 
 that might have existed between the Gaels 
 and the Norse Vikings. 
 
 Somerled further strengthened his hold on 
 the Isles, about the year 11 40, by marrying 
 Ragnhilda, the daughter of Olave the Red, 
 and sister of Godred, whose harsh and op- 
 pressive rule had been the cause of the wide- 
 spread revolt in which Somhairle had found 
 his great opportunity. Godred soon saw 
 that his enemy was like to crush him out of 
 the rest of the Hebrides, for Somerled in 
 1 1 56 joined with Thorfinn, a Manx chief, in 
 a plot to place Dugall, a mere child, son of 
 Somerled and Ragnhilda, on the throne of 
 the Isles. Godred heard of the plot, and 
 sailed from Man with a fleet to meet Somer- 
 led, who with eighty ships was waiting for 
 him. A terrific battle took place, which, at 
 the end of a long day, found the combatants 
 still determined and unbeaten. Having 
 
142 ARRAN 
 
 tasted the quality of his great rival, Godred 
 was glad to make terms by which all the 
 islands south of the point of Ardnamurchan, 
 of course including Kintyre, always regarded 
 as an island, were ceded to Somerled, or 
 rather to his son Dugall ; while Godred kept 
 for himself Man, Skye, Coll, Tiree, and the 
 Long Island. Mr. Dugald Mitchell suggests 
 that a probable result of this arrangement 
 was an exodus of the purely Norse popula- 
 tion from the south islands, and of the purely 
 Keltic portion of the population of the 
 northern islands, which remained under 
 Norwegian rule till a hundred years later. 
 In 1 156 there seems to have been another 
 quarrel between Godred and Somerled, who 
 invaded Man with his fleet and added it to his 
 dominions. Godred fled to Norway, where he 
 remained till Somerled's death eight yearslater. 
 In 1 159 the peace was made between 
 the King of Scotland and Somerled, which 
 resulted in the drawing up of the famous 
 treaty of that date, held to be of so much im- 
 portance that it formed an epoch for the dating 
 of Scottish charters. 
 
THE HAMMER OF THE NORSEMEN 143 
 
 In 1 1 64 Somerled had again fallen out 
 with the Scottish monarch, for whose king- 
 dom he had done so much. His object was, 
 it is said, to make himself king of all Scot- 
 land. Be this as it may, he sailed up the 
 Clyde with a fleet of one hundred and sixty 
 ships and a force of Scots from Ireland. He 
 landed, according to tradition, at Renfrew, and 
 Gregory thinks the old story is correct which 
 states that he was there murdered in his tent 
 by one of his own followers in whom he 
 placed confidence. His son Gillecallum was 
 also slain, and his men returned to the Isles. 
 His body was taken to Saddell, in Kintyre, 
 where his son Ragnald built the monastery of 
 which the remains still stand, and endowed 
 it with lands at Boltefean, in Kintyre, and 
 Shisken in Arran. 
 
 So died the man who preserved the iden- 
 tity of the Gaels in the western Highlands 
 and the islands of Innse Gall, and who put a 
 stop for ever to the encroachments of the 
 Norwegians on the mainland of Scotland. 
 For, though there were subsequent attacks 
 till the time of Alexander iii., no acre of 
 
144 ARRAN 
 
 Scottish ground ever again knew a Nor- 
 wegian owner, and no foothold of any perma- 
 nence was again obtained even amongst the 
 islands. Only the Orkneys and Shetlands, 
 which never had at any time belonged to the 
 Scottish kings, remained under Norse rule 
 till their cession to Scotland in 1564. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HOW KING HAKON FOUGHT AT LARGS 
 
 There are few direct references to Arran in 
 the chronicles up to this time, but it was 
 passing for all that through the heart of the 
 fire in those terrible years. And, judging from 
 its position in the very midst of the great 
 arena of the fight, and the extraordinary 
 number of its historical remains and monu- 
 ments, it was saturated with the blood of the 
 fallen, Norseman and Gael, After the death 
 of Somerled his possessions in the Isles were 
 divided between his three sons by Ragnhilda 
 — Mull, Coll and Tiree, and Jura went to 
 Dugall ; Isla and Kintyre to Reginald; and 
 Bute to Angus. Arran is supposed to have 
 been divided between Angus and Reginald. 
 Somerled's possessions on the mainland were 
 
146 ARRAN 
 
 divided between his sons by his former 
 marriage. 
 
 On the death of Reginald, son of Somer- 
 led, his possessions in Argyll and the Isles 
 went to his eldest son Donald, while his 
 younger son Ruari got Bute and Arran and 
 the extensive district of Garmoran on the 
 mainland. The territory given to his son 
 Angus by Somerled had been seized by 
 Reginald, and Angus and his three sons were 
 slain in the quarrel. 
 
 James, one of the sons of Angus, had left a 
 daughter, Jane, who had married Alexander, 
 fifth High Steward of Scotland, who seems 
 to have seized the coveted island of Bute on 
 his wife's behalf on the death of Angus. 
 This was about the year 1165 : it was the 
 beginning of the long connection of the 
 Stewarts with Bute. From it many im- 
 portant results grew, for it was the first real 
 footing of the Scottish royal house in the 
 islands. 
 
 Alexander 11., a great king, in 1236 sent 
 to King Hakon of Norway to ask whether 
 he would give up his possessions in the 
 
KING HAKON AT LARGS 147 
 
 Hebrides, which it was pretended Magnus 
 Barefoot had taken from Malcolm, though 
 Malcolm had never any title to them. To 
 this Hakon replied with perfect truth, that the 
 King of Scotland had no right in the islands 
 when they were won by Magnus from God- 
 red Crovan. Alexander then offered to buy 
 the islands. This offer Hakon declined. 
 Alexander made other attempts without avail, 
 till the year 1249, when, according to the 
 " Saga of King Hakon," he collected his 
 forces and made it manifest "... that he 
 would not desist till he had placed his stan- 
 dard on the cliffs of Thurso, and had reduced 
 under his own rule all the provinces which 
 the Norse king held westward of the German 
 ocean." Alexander sailed up the west coast 
 and sought the help of Eogan (Ewan), great- 
 grandson of Somerled, who, of course, 
 held his lands, like the other island lords, 
 from the King of Norway, while any posses- 
 sions they had on the mainland were held 
 of the King; of Scotland. Eog-an refused to 
 join Alexander, and the king sailed up as far 
 as the island of Kerrera, opposite the town of 
 
148 ARRAN 
 
 Oban, and was there seized with an illness 
 from which he died. It was not till 1262 
 that the new king, Alexander iii., after 
 attempting to enter into negotiations with 
 King Hakon, attacked the northern islands, 
 then held by Roderick MacSomerled and 
 his sons Dugall and Allan, who sent word 
 to the Norse king that Alexander purposed to 
 subdue all the Hebrides if life were granted 
 him. King Hakon sailed for the southern 
 isles with "a mighty and splendid armament 
 of upwards of 120 vessels," including the 
 great ship which the " Saga of King Hakon " 
 tells us had been specially built at Bergen. 
 It had twenty-seven banks of oars, and was 
 ** ornamented with heads and necks of 
 dragons overlaid with gold." 
 
 King Dugall, we are told, and Magnus, 
 King of Man, and many others from the Isles 
 joined him, but Angus Mor, chief of the whole 
 clan Donald, and lord of I slay and South 
 Kintyre, who now held of the Scottish crown, 
 refused, while Bute was of course held by the 
 Steward in right of Jane, Nic Somhairle. 
 King Eogan, of the house of Dougal of Lorn, 
 
KING HAKON AT LARGS 149 
 
 also visited Hakon, and explained that as he 
 held more land of the King of Scots than of 
 the King of Norway he could not follow him. 
 Hakon then took Bute and gave it to Ruari, 
 son of Reginald, who claimed it. 
 
 So the honours were with the Nor- 
 wegian king when he arrived with his great 
 fleet in Lamlash Bay in the middle of 
 Auo-ust. Alexander then commenced a 
 waiting game, as is shown by the " Hakon 
 Saga," in the hope of detaining the Nor- 
 wegian fleet till the bad weather set in, for 
 the Norse and the Vikings generally were 
 "summer sailors," and returned to their 
 own lands in the winter season. Long 
 negotiations went on. Alexander saw clearly 
 his own weakness, for he seems to have been 
 willing to whittle down his grand claim to 
 the whole Hebrides to a demand for Arran, 
 Bute, and the Cumbraes, but these he would 
 in no wise part with. Having no fleet, 
 Alexander waited on shore at Largs with 
 his army. 
 
 Hakon was no savage Viking, but a wise 
 and civilised ruler, who granted protection to 
 
ISO ARRAN 
 
 the various abbeys round the scene of 
 hostilities, and did things generally on a grand 
 and liberal scale. Time had wrought great 
 changes, and the southern isles were popu- 
 lous and busy and prosperous once more, as 
 they had been before the Norse incursions. 
 
 Still the truce continued, still Alexander 
 played the Fabian part, and still the Norse 
 king showed a desire to come to terms. 
 Hakon's patience at last gave way, and at the 
 end of September he marshalled his great fleet 
 opposite the village of Largs, and sent sixty 
 of his vessels up Loch Long, from which the 
 leaders, the King of Man, and Allan, brother 
 of King Dugall, caused them to be drawn over 
 the narrow neck of land at Tarbert into Loch 
 Lomond. In the grandiloquent words of 
 Snorro Sturleson, " the pursuing, shielded 
 warriors of the thrower of the whizzing spear 
 drew their boats across the broad isthmus. 
 Our fearless troops, the exactors of contribu- 
 tion, with flaming brands wasted the popu- 
 lous islands in the lake, and the towers and 
 houses around its bays." Allan led his men 
 to the further side of the loch into the 
 
KING HAKON AT LARGS 151 
 
 Lennox, and " marched far over into Scot- 
 land," burning and harrying on all sides. 
 
 He had been better employed under King 
 Hakon, for on September 30 the storm 
 Alexander had been waiting and hoping for 
 fell upon the fleet. Ten ships of the Loch 
 Long expedition were utterly wrecked. The 
 storm raged for two days, and King Hakon 
 got into his boat and rowed ashore on one 
 of the Cumbraes, and there had mass sung. 
 
 Many of the ships had been torn from 
 their anchorage and driven ashore on the 
 rocks of Largs and the Cumbraes, while the 
 rest of the fleet was driven up the Clyde. 
 Hakon, seeing the threatening attitude of 
 the natives who covered the hills, landed a 
 force to protect his stranded vessels and en- 
 able the men to refloat them. Then it was 
 that the army of Alexander appeared, " 1500 
 knights and barons mounted on fleet Spanish 
 chargers, and a large body of foot," while be- 
 hind them the native peasantry appear to 
 have made a formidable show. 
 
 The Norwegian force landed by Hakon is 
 given by Snorro as only 900 men, and even 
 
152 ARRAN 
 
 if there were twice as many, the force does not 
 seem to have been in any kind of proportion to 
 that of the Scots. That they gave a good 
 account of themselves is clear ; forming in a 
 circle, with their long spears, they met the 
 onslaught of the mounted knights of Alexan- 
 der and the furious charges for which the 
 Scottish foot were famous. 
 
 The best account of the disaster that 
 followed is given by the Saga, which is very 
 honest, though its language is naturally 
 reluctant, and the truth comes out that the 
 retreat of the Norsemen became a panic, 
 in which, as the writer euphemistically puts 
 it, "each tried to be faster than the others." 
 The Scots, he says, " had a great host of 
 footmen, but that force," he adds candidly, 
 " was badly equipped as to weapons. The 
 most of them had bows and Irish bills. The 
 Scots came on foot, and pelted them with 
 stones. Then a great shower of weapons fell 
 upon the Northmen. But they fell back facing 
 the enemy, and shielded themselves. But 
 when the Northmen came as far as the brow 
 of the descent which went down from the 
 
■■->,''• ■■...'■'.■'''■ ': ', \'' sH 
 
KING HAKON AT LARGS 153 
 
 hillock, then each tried to be faster than the 
 others. And when those which were down 
 below on the shingle saw that, they thought 
 that the Northmen wanted to flee. Then the 
 Northmen ran to the boats, and in that way 
 some of them put off from the land and came 
 out to the ships. But most of the boats sunk, 
 and then some men were lost. Many North- 
 men ran under the lee of the bark, and some 
 got up into her. When the Northmen came 
 down from the hillock into the dell between 
 it and the shinofle, then most of them took to 
 running. Then some one called out to them 
 to turn back. Then some men turned back, 
 but still few. There fell one of the King's 
 bodyguard, Hakon of Steni. Then the 
 Northmen still ran away." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 KING HAKON AT LAMLASH 
 
 That same day, the Saga tells us, King 
 Hakon " sailed away from the Cumbraes and 
 out to Molas Isle (Lamlash), and lay there 
 some nights. Thither came to him those 
 men whom he had sent to Ireland ; and told 
 him that the Irish would keep the whole host 
 that winter on the understanding that Hakon 
 would free them from the sway of the 
 Englishmen." 
 
 Hakon, however, decided to sail northward 
 to Orkney. He had made a brave fight, but 
 it could only have been a piece of bravado 
 that on his way he gave to Dugall, and 
 Allan his brother, the lands of King Eoghan, 
 Bute to Ruari, and Arran to Margad or 
 Marchad, and also the castle of Dunaverty to 
 Dugall. 
 
KING HAKON AT LAMLASH 155 
 
 The old king reached Kirkwall, there 
 intending to wait till he could gather another 
 force, but the terrible disaster he had suffered, 
 and no doubt fatigue and anger, brought on 
 a fever from which he died. His body was 
 taken to Norway, and buried in the Cathedral 
 of Bergen. He had reigned for nearly fifty 
 years, and his name is one of the greatest on 
 the roll of the Norwegian kings. 
 
 The battle of Largs went to Alexander. 
 Much has been made of it, but it was not the 
 victory it has been claimed to be, the force of 
 the Scottish king being an overwhelming 
 one when pitted against the, at the most, few 
 hundred Norsemen who were able to land. 
 In truth, the storm did more for Scotland on 
 that occasion than the forces of its king. 
 The battle, however, ended the most terrible 
 chapter in the history of the Western Isles 
 and Highlands of Scotland. It is true that 
 for a full hundred years, since the days of 
 Somerled, the time had been a comparatively 
 peaceful one in the Southern Isles. Yet still 
 for Scotland it was essential that the 
 Norwegian menace should be removed 
 
156 ARRAN 
 
 finally from her doors. It is satisfactory to 
 those who love the Hebrides to remember 
 that one of our own blood and race was un- 
 doubtedly the real "Tamer of the Ravens," 
 the true Hammer of the Norsemen, and not 
 the Scottish king. 
 
 Hakon was succeeded by Magnus, who, on 
 the death of the King of Man in 1265, was 
 persuaded to hand over all the Western 
 Islands formally to Scotland, it being stipu- 
 lated in the treaty that such of the subjects 
 of Norway who wished to leave the Hebrides 
 should have full liberty to do so, with all 
 their effects, while those who wished to remain 
 were to become loyal subjects of Scotland. 
 
PART VII 
 THE DAYS OF WALLACE 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE GREAT WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 THE BATTLE OF STIRLING BRIDGE 
 
 The relations of England and Scodand were 
 never more friendly than in 1290, when the 
 Scots paid Edward i. the compliment of 
 calling him to act as umpire between the 
 claimants for the crown of Scotland, on the 
 death of Alexander iii. and of his little grand- 
 daughter, the " Maid of Norway." To this 
 girl, then a mere child, it had been arranged 
 that Edward's son should be married, and so 
 fulfil the great dream of the ambitious English 
 king by uniting the two kingdoms. 
 
 Until the Union of the Crowns in 1707 
 Scotland had no enemy in the world save 
 England, and during the reigns of David i. 
 and her three excellent Alexanders she had 
 been happy and prosperous. Mr. Ren wick 
 
i6o ARRAN 
 
 says : " It is universally agreed that, through- 
 out her long career as an independent king- 
 dom, no period was more prosperous for 
 Scotland than the century and a half which 
 elapsed between the accession of the first David 
 and the death of the last Alexander. . . . 
 The Scottish monarchs . . . ruled over a united 
 people from Maidenkirk to John o' Groats." 
 
 It is well to remember this, for Scotsmen 
 are apt to despise their early ancestors, and 
 to believe that all good things commenced 
 in the reign of Robert Bruce. Yet many 
 of our native kings, like Brude or Bride of 
 Columba's time, Constantine of Brunanburh 
 fame, and that grand old fighter, Malcolm 
 Canmore, showed sterling character and 
 strength. The Alexanders and David i. were 
 indeed men of conspicuous wisdom and up- 
 rightness. Only with the Norman and feudal 
 taint came the tendency to tyranny so familiar 
 in England and in some of the later Scottish 
 kings ; though it must be admitted that the 
 Stewarts were conspicuously superior, both in 
 mind and manners, to the Plantagenet and 
 Tudor monarchs. Indeed, no king of the low 
 
. THE DAYS OF WALLACE i6i 
 
 mental calibre of the Georges ever sat upon 
 the Scottish throne. On this point the old 
 ballad put the feeling of the Scottish people 
 admirably — 
 
 "Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king, 
 But a wee, wee German lairdie ! 
 
 When we gaed owre tae bring him hame. 
 He was delvin' in his kail yairdie. 
 
 He was sheughin' kail, and layin' leeks, 
 
 Without the hose, and but the breeks ; 
 
 And up his beggar duds he cleeks, 
 This wee, wee German lairdie." 
 
 The laws of the Scots kingdom made kingly- 
 tyranny difficult, just as the old Scottish pre- 
 feudal laws made difficult the tyranny of the 
 great lords and chiefs. It was the feudal 
 system that made it easy in both countries. 
 
 Save in the set-back due to the Norse 
 invasions, Scotland suffered no more terrible 
 calamity than the persecutions of Edward i. 
 and his efforts to convert the country into an 
 English province. The only satisfaction is 
 that they ended in utter failure, and brought 
 the commons into the field, as men whose 
 honour and weal were alike concerned in 
 keeping their country independent. This was 
 
i62 ARRAN 
 
 a negative kind of benefit, and it is probable 
 that the same end would have been far better 
 served by other and less costly means ; but 
 it is a benefit of which historians of a certain 
 type have made much, as they have of the 
 Norse invasions — as though a great war can 
 be a benefit, can be anything other than a 
 great calamity ; as though invasions by North 
 American Indians could be anything less than 
 a great curse to a civilised community. What 
 the Norsemen and the feudal system robbed 
 us of was a national culture which had grown 
 up during a thousand years, a culture which 
 was our own, which had received the imprint 
 of our race, and which had splendid prospects 
 of development. 
 
 There was little of patriotism in the thirteen 
 candidates who came forward to claim the 
 crown of Alexander iii, on his sad and sudden 
 death by the fall of his horse over the cliffs 
 at Kinghorn in Fife. Only two of them, 
 indeed, had any real claim ; but it suited 
 Edward's purpose to cause difficulty and 
 confusion, so that in making his award as 
 umpire he might place the successful candidate 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 163 
 
 under an obligation to himself. It cannot 
 be said that the candidates were in any sense 
 Scottish in feeling or sentiment or education ; 
 they all had a share of Scottish blood in the 
 female line. It was a dark hour for Scotland 
 this when, as the poet says, her **golde 
 changed into lede." After eighteen months 
 of deliberation, Edward gave his award to 
 John Baliol, a man of weak character but 
 not without courage. As soon as he became 
 king, Edward commenced to heap indignities 
 upon him ; assuming the character of an over- 
 lord, to which he had no tittle of right, he 
 commanded that any act of injustice, or 
 complaint should be referred to him by the 
 King of Scotland, who must appear before 
 him personally at Westminster. Even Baliol, 
 the "toom tabard," could not stand this kind 
 of degradation, and he threw off his allegiance 
 and invaded England. 
 
 Edward had now got what he aimed at, 
 and he marched north with a huge army 
 backed by a great fleet. Taking Berwick, 
 then our first seaport, he slew, in the streets 
 of the town, no less than seventeen thousand 
 
i64 ARRAN 
 
 persons, and finally utterly routed Baliol's 
 army at Dunbar. He then marched north 
 as far as Elgin, and made himself master 
 of the country. Baliol submitted and did 
 penance before the English knights in the 
 churchyard of Strathcathro. His crown was 
 taken from his brow, and he was publicly 
 unfrocked, while he stood and admitted his 
 guilt, dressed only in his shirt and drawers. 
 The crown he resigned, and he was sent a 
 prisoner to the Tower of London. The 
 insult was deeply felt by the Scottish people. 
 Edward appointed the Earl of Surrey 
 Guardian of Scotland, filled all the castles 
 with English garrisons and the public offices 
 with Englishmen, and took away to West- 
 minster the famous Stone of Destiny on 
 which the Scottish kings had been crowned 
 from immemorial time. It is, however, pretty 
 clear that this "lawyer king," as he has been 
 called, did not remove the national documents 
 as has been stated. Mr. Joseph Bain has 
 cleared this stain from his character. Fearing 
 lest the Scots should join Philip of France 
 in his war against him, he ordered that no 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 165 
 
 Scotsman should be allowed to leave the 
 kingdom. 
 
 This was in January 1 296-7. In the winter 
 of the same year a young man, son of Sir 
 Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie in Renfrew, was 
 insulted by the English in the streets of 
 Lanark. With a handful of men and his 
 friend Sir John the Graeme (the remains of 
 whose castle may still be seen near Balfron) 
 they fought their way through the streets to 
 his house, from which they escaped into the 
 woods. The English governor, Haselrig, 
 knowing that Wallace's young sweetheart, the 
 heiress of the Bradfuites of Lamington, had 
 helped their escape, had her put to death ; and 
 Wallace, the first of Scottish patriots, who had 
 already been engaged in fighting the invaders, 
 came into prominence by the revenge he ex- 
 acted for this murder. He broke into the 
 house of the governor, Haselrig, at midnight, 
 and, dragging him into the street, had him 
 instantly beheaded. The people of the town 
 then rose, and slew twelve-score of the men of 
 Edward's garrison. 
 
 Some of the nobles now came over to the 
 
i66 ARRAN 
 
 popular side. Amongst them, the Steward of 
 Scotland and Sir John Stewart of Bonkill 
 joined Wallace, who united his force, largely 
 composed of Lanark townsmen, with that 
 under Sir William Douglas. 
 
 The Stewarts brought into the field the 
 men of Bute and Arran, the famous Brandani ; 
 and after the successful campaign in the 
 Glasgow neighbourhood, Wallace appears to 
 have taken them, with "Westland men all 
 sturdy, stout, and bold, five hundred next, 
 Sir John the Graeme he got, Lundie five 
 hundred more," in his march through Glen- 
 dochart to Brander and Loch Awe to trap 
 the Irish mercenary general, Mac Fadzean. 
 Thence they seem to have marched to Ard- 
 chattan, and here held a kind of conference 
 with the West Higrhland leaders. 
 
 Carrick suofgrests that it was owino- to the 
 growing strength of Wallace's force, and 
 possibly to his severe punishment of deserters 
 of rank, that some of the barons left him 
 a little later. 
 
 These deserters included the best of the 
 nobles, like Sir William of Douglas, the 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 167 
 
 Steward, Stewart of Bonkill, Robert Bruce, 
 Lindsay, and the Bishop of Glasgow, Wishart. 
 Wallace marched north, followed only by his 
 poorer adherents, the free yeomanry of Scot- 
 land. These, as Carrick says, were the tenants 
 and descendants of tenants of the crown and 
 church lands, or those who occupied farms on 
 the demesnes of the barons, for which they 
 paid an equivalent rent in money or produce. 
 They had the power "of removing to what- 
 ever place they might think most desirable, 
 and owed no military service except to the 
 king for the defence of the country. Among 
 them the independence of Scotland always 
 found its most faithful and stubborn supporters. 
 These liberi firmarii, for so they are called 
 in the Chartularies and Chamberlain's Ac- 
 counts, were considered so useful . . . that, 
 during the minority of the Maid of Norway, 
 a sum of money appears to have been distri- 
 buted among them as an inducement to remain 
 on the crown lands of Liberton and Lawrence- 
 toun, which they were preparing to leave in con- 
 sequence of a mortality amongst their cattle." 
 These and the freemen of the boroughs, 
 
i68 ARRAN 
 
 rather than the cottars or villeins who followed 
 the barons, we are told, supplied the material 
 out of which Wallace recruited his ranks ; and 
 the extraordinary frequency with which the 
 Scottish nobles, including even the Steward 
 and Robert Bruce himself, changed sides, 
 leaving Wallace for Edward and Edward for 
 Wallace, made little difference beyond disgust- 
 ing and disheartening the great leader. 
 
 At the battle of Stirling Bridge it is prob- 
 able that Sir John Menteith, on whom the 
 lordship of Arran had been conferred by 
 the Steward, and also Stewart of Bonkill, 
 leader of the Arran men, were all present. 
 The Steward was now on the side of the 
 English, but his tenants were on that of 
 the people. He played a curious part, for, 
 pretending to make peace for the English 
 with the Scots, he turned round upon them 
 when the actual fighting began, and with the 
 Earl of Lennox assisted the Scots in pursu- 
 ing and killing the English who were trying 
 to save themselves. It may have been a 
 deliberate trick on their part, but it was not 
 an honourable trick. In fact, never did the 
 
^^^^''■^y:? 
 
 , • ''p 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 169 
 
 great mass of the Scoto-Norman nobility show 
 in a meaner Ho-ht than all throuofh this cam- 
 paign and at the great commoner's battle of 
 Stirling Bridge, when Wallace unaided, nay, 
 hindered, by the nobility, utterly annihilated 
 a huge English army. 
 
 THE BRANDANES AT THE BATTLE OF 
 FALKIRK 
 
 The most famous achievement of the Brand- 
 ani was undoubtedly the prolonged resistance 
 and splendid devotion they showed at the 
 battle of Falkirk — a battle which, though it 
 ended in defeat, was one of the things of 
 which Scotsmen may well be proud. There 
 Wallace was at his greatest and best, and 
 there the commoners of Scotland — small lairds, 
 tacksmen, and "kindly tenants," and the in- 
 dependent clansmen from the non-feudal, 
 Gaelic-speaking districts of Scotland — showed 
 best their tenacity and their stern bravery ; 
 for Falkirk, like later Poitiers, was essentially 
 a soldiers' battle. And of all the soldiers 
 engaged in it, the name of the " Brandanys " 
 comes down to us as those who bore the brunt 
 
lyo ARRAN 
 
 of the fight. The subsequent references to 
 them in the story of Wallace shows in what 
 high estimation they were held. They it was 
 who withstood and defeated the great attack 
 of Lincoln and Hereford, and the second on- 
 slaught by Bek and Bruce, and they it was, 
 " the men who would hazard anything," who 
 at the end of the fight were called upon when 
 Wallace gathered a few chosen men to guard 
 the retreat of the remnant of his army. So 
 effective does their resistance and the general- 
 ship of Wallace appear to have been in cover- 
 ing the retreat of his men, that there was no 
 rout or disorder or pursuit ; though they were 
 but a handful, the English were glad to allow 
 them to retire unmolested ; and it is certain 
 that the Scots were able to bury quietly the 
 dead Sir John the Graeme, and possibly 
 Bonkill, in Falkirk graveyard before their 
 march westwards upon Stirling. It was, in- 
 deed, not till four days later that Edward 
 entered that town. He had won, but his army 
 had had their fill of fighting, and he knew it. 
 The Lord of Arran was at this time, as we 
 have said, Sir John Menteith, who was a 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 171 
 
 Stewart ; Blind Harry tells us how he had 
 joined Wallace : 
 
 "Sir John Monteith was then of Arran lord, 
 To Wallace came and made a plain record, 
 With witness there by his oath he him band [bound], 
 Faithful to keep to Wallace and Scotland." 
 
 Sir John, " the false Menteith," is one of the 
 most famous figures in Scottish history, as the 
 manwholaterbetrayedWallace to the English. 
 
 The lordship of the island of Arran had 
 been given to him by the Steward of Scotland 
 a very little earlier, but the Arran men 
 followed his nephew Bonkill, brother of the 
 Steward, as the representative of Jane, grand- 
 daughter of Angus, son of Somerled. 
 
 It is curious that Menteith's brother was 
 at this time governor of the great castle of 
 Rothesay in Edward's interest, while Brodick 
 castle was held by Menteith himself for the 
 Scots. It is clear that the natives were 
 wholly and heartily in sympathy with the 
 popular cause, despite the fact that Rothesay 
 was in the hands of Edward. 
 
 The English army which marched on 
 Falkirk, according to English accounts, was 
 
172 ARRAN 
 
 a magnificent one : it numbered over 123,000 
 men, including 3000 horsemen armed- at all 
 points, and 4000 hobilers or light horse, while 
 the footmen numbered 80,000 ; but these were 
 not all, for reinforcements came up on the 
 march. The army, moreover, included Ed- 
 ward's splendid veterans who had done such 
 service in the French war. It was supported by 
 a great fleet of vessels anchored in the Forth, 
 with which communication was quite easy by 
 the river Carron, then navigable right up to 
 the present town of Falkirk, Grahamston, and 
 Bainsford — or more properly Briansford ; for 
 the name was taken from that of Brian le Joy, 
 Prior of the Knights Templars in Scotland, 
 who joined Edward and was slain by Wal- 
 lace's own hand in Callendar Wood, near this 
 spot. With him were many of the Scottish 
 nobles who had also joined Edward, and one 
 of them, the Earl of Angus, who was with 
 Wallace, is said to have sent secret informa- 
 tion to Edward as to the position of the 
 Scottish army and of Wallace's intention to 
 make a night attack. So was Scotland be- 
 trayed on all sides by her Norman nobility. 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 173 
 
 On Edward's side were arrayed all the 
 great men of his realm, Lincoln and Here- 
 ford, Butler and Clifford, FitzAlan and Fitz- 
 Marmaduke, Hastings and Bruce. 
 
 The Scottish army numbered 30,000, and it 
 had the fatal defect of being almost without 
 cavalry. Wallace was in favour of avoiding 
 so great an army, and adopting a waiting 
 policy by retiring north. There were serious 
 dissensions amongst the three leaders, and 
 much jealousy. So the little army, consisting 
 of spearmen chiefly, paused on that historic 
 plain, close to the remains of the Roman city 
 of Camelon — a plain which had been the 
 battleground of Scotland during so many 
 ages. The three divisions of the army were 
 under Wallace, Comyn, and Sir John Stewart 
 of Bonkill. It is said that Stewart wished to 
 take supreme command, as brother to the 
 High Steward, who was not present ; Comyn, 
 again, claimed the command on account of his 
 near kinship to the throne ; while Wallace de- 
 clined to surrender his authority. One remark 
 of Stewart's, quoted by Blind Harry, is of 
 interest, as it shows, whether Stewart actually 
 
174 ARRAN 
 
 made it or not, that the retainers of the peers 
 had joined the popular cause independently 
 of their feudal superiors — 
 
 " Then of your men be not so vain, but mind 
 Had each his own there would be few left." 
 
 "If every nobleman in Scotland were to claim 
 his part of those vassals which now follow 
 your banners, your own personal retainers 
 would make but a sorry appearance in sup- 
 port of your high pretensions." ^ 
 
 Comyn deserted at the beginning of the 
 battle, taking with him 10,000 men ; leaving 
 Stewart with his Selkirk archers and his 
 Arran and Bute men, and MacDuff with the 
 men of Fife, to bear the brunt of Hereford's 
 attack. Stewart, according to Blind Harry, 
 met the advancing division of 30,000 men 
 with his 10,000 : 
 
 ". . . the brave Stewart stood so fierce and hot. 
 That Hareford's men lay dead upon the spot. 
 When spears were broke, boldly their swords they drew, 
 And many thousand of the Southron slew. 
 The rest they fled unto their king with grief. 
 Who sent ten thousand for a fresh relief." 
 
 * Carrick. 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 175 
 
 The Brandani fought on though their 
 leader fell early in the day, and Wallace, 
 according to Blind Harry, said — 
 
 " They have done well in that fellon stoure ; * 
 Rescue them now, and take a high honour." 
 
 They had withstood the onset of a whole 
 division, and being freemen, lairds, and free 
 clansmen, and not feudal serfs or vassals, they 
 were used to acting independently, and so, 
 though leaderless, fought on. Wyntoun 
 says : 
 
 " The Scottis thare slayne were in that stoure ; 
 There Jhon Stwart apon fute, 
 Wyth him the Brandanys thare of Bute." 
 
 It has been always a sore thing for Scottish 
 historians to believe that Bruce, afterwards 
 the good king, was on Edward's side at that 
 great fight : it is humiliating, but the fact 
 was evidently too universally known during 
 Bruce's own lifetime to be suppressed. 
 
 Fordun makes it quite clear, and he wrote 
 about the year 1380, or only some fifty years 
 after the death of Bruce, and must have been 
 born not more than fifteen or twenty years after 
 
 * Dust of turmoil. 
 
176 ARRAN 
 
 that event, when the story of the great struggle 
 was in every one's mouth. He says : — 
 
 "While the Scots were holding their 
 ground invincible, and could not be broken 
 by either force or stratagem, this Robert of 
 Bruce, with a body of men commanded by 
 Antony de Bek, taking a long circuit round 
 a mountain, attacked the Scots in the rear. 
 Thus the Scots, whose ranks were impene- 
 trable and invincible in front, were cunningly 
 vanquished in the rear." Blind Harry gives 
 the same account. 
 
 Wyntoun also, who wrote in 1426, would no 
 doubt have been glad enough to suppress facts 
 which soiled the character of so popular a hero 
 as Bruce, had it been possible to do so. It 
 remained for later historians near to our own 
 day to attempt the task, but, however un- 
 palatable, 
 
 "Truth will stand though all things failin'." 
 
 Blind Harry tells how the Brandani stood 
 over their fallen leader : 
 
 " Sir John the Graym, and mony worthy wicht, 
 Wepyt in woe for sorrow of that sicht, 
 
. THE DAYS OF WALLACE 177 
 
 When Bruce his battaill apon the Scottis straik, 
 Thair cruel com * made cowards for to quake ; 
 Lord Cumyn fled to Cummyrnauld away. 
 About the Scottis the Suthernes lappit they 
 The men of Bute before thair lord thai stud, 
 Defendand him, when fell streams of blood, 
 Were there about in floodis where they went. 
 Bathed in blood was Bruce's sword and dress. 
 Through fell slaughter of trewmen of his own. 
 Soon to the death the Scots were overthrown. 
 
 So, exposed to the famous bowmen of 
 England, and surrounded by the men of Bruce 
 and Bek, the close-locked, invincible schiltrons 
 of Brandanes were mown down till they lay 
 heaped up like a wall around their fallen 
 leader. Then Wallace gathered his knights, 
 and, ordering his army to retire towards the 
 Torwood, where they would be protected from 
 Edward's cavalry and bowmen, to cover their 
 retreat — 
 
 " He and Sir John the Graham, and Lauder then. 
 Stayed with three hundred stout West Countrymen, 
 Expert in war would hazard anything." 
 
 So much the great leader thought of our 
 forbears of the West, to whom went the chief 
 honours of that fatal day, though justice has 
 never been done to the fact. 
 
 * Arrival. 
 
178 ARRAN 
 
 It was at this time that the good Sir John 
 the Graeme fell, in a conflict, it seems, be- 
 tween the few knights of Wallace's force and 
 those accompanying Bruce's party. The 
 Scottish host, or what was left of it, retired 
 to the Torwood above Larbert on Carron 
 side, and Bruce is described as returning to 
 Edward's tent where he, 
 
 " Sitting down in his own vacant seat, 
 Call'd for no water, but went straight to meat. 
 Tho' all his weapons and his other weed * 
 Were stained with blood, yet he began to feed ; 
 The Southron lords did mock him in terms rude, 
 And said, behold yon Scot eats his own blood ! 
 The king he blenched at this so home a jest. 
 And caused bring water to the Bruce in haste ; 
 They bade him wash, he told them he would not, 
 ' The blood is mine, which vexes most my thought.' " 
 
 HOW THE BRANDANES COVERED THE 
 RETREAT 
 
 According to Carrick's account, made up 
 from the English writers, who do not differ 
 materially from the foregoing, the Scottish 
 army, which principally consisted of spearmen 
 or lancers, was arranged in four divisions or 
 
 * Clothing and accoutrements. 
 
. THE DAYS OF WALLACE 179 
 
 schiltrons. "Those in the centre held their 
 long spears perpendicular, and stood ready to 
 fill up a vacancy, while each intervening rank 
 gradually sloped their weapons till they came 
 to a level. The front rank kneeling, and the 
 whole closely wedged together, presented to 
 the enemy the appearance of four enormous, 
 impenetrable porcupines, the space between 
 each being filled up with archers." Seeing 
 the strong appearance of the Scots, the king 
 desired to wait, but gave way to the opinions 
 of his followers, and sent forward the Earls 
 of Lincoln and Hereford with a squadron 
 of 30,000 men. Their progress, how- 
 ever, was retarded by an extensive morass, 
 which covered the front of the Scots and 
 obliged their enemies to make a circuit to the 
 west. While thus employed, the powerful 
 squadron under Bishop Bek of Durham 
 managed to get in front of the enemy. Bek, 
 however, on observing the formidable appear- 
 ance of his opponents, wished to delay the 
 charge till supported by the column under the 
 command of the king. " Stick to thy mass, 
 Bishop," said Ralf Basset of Drayton, " and 
 
i8o ARRAN 
 
 teach us not what to do in the face of an 
 enemy." "On, then," said Bek ; "set on in 
 your own way ; we are all soldiers to-day, and 
 bound to do our duty." At this his men 
 rushed forward, and " became engaged with 
 the first schiltron, which was almost simul- 
 taneously attacked on the opposite quarter 
 by the division of Lincoln and Hereford which 
 had cleared the morass. The cavalry of the 
 Scots, and a large body of the vassals of John 
 Comyn, immediately wheeled about, and left 
 the field without awaiting the attack. The 
 schiltrons of spearmen, however, stood firm, 
 and repulsed all efforts of their numerous and 
 heavy-armed assailants, who recoiled again 
 and again before the mass of spears. Baffled 
 in their attack, Edward's cavalry charged upon 
 the archers, who, less able to stand their 
 ground against the weight of their mail-clad 
 adversaries, gave way. In the confusion. Sir 
 John Stewart of Bonkill was thrown to the 
 ground, while attempting to rally his followers, 
 the archers of Selkirk, and, though many of 
 them rushed forward to his assistance, their 
 exertions were in vain : their gallant leader 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE i8i 
 
 fell surrounded by the bodies of his faithful 
 tenantry." 
 
 Though heavy squadrons of cavalry were 
 continually pushed forward against the Scot- 
 tish spearmen, "still they maintained their 
 ranks, and displayed such admirable discipline 
 and stubborn resolution, that Edward, con- 
 vinced of the inability of breaking their array, 
 suspended the charges of his horsemen, and 
 ordered all his archers and slingers to ad- 
 vance." Of these, it is interesting to note, 
 40,000 Welsh archers refused to act against 
 the Scots. Langtoft says : 
 
 " The "Walsch folk that tide did nouther ille nor good ; 
 They held them alle beside, upon a hille they stood. 
 Where they stood that while, tille the battle was done." 
 
 Of the Scottish spearmen he says : 
 
 " Ther foremast conrey, their backs together set, 
 Their speares poynt over poynt, so sare and so thick. 
 And fast together joined, to see it was ferlike. 
 As a castle they stood, that were walled with stone, 
 They wende no man of blood through them should 
 
 have gone ; 
 These folk was so big, so stalwart and so clean, 
 Their foyntes forward prikelle, nohut would they wene, 
 That if all England from Berwick unto Kent, 
 The therein men fond had been thither sent, 
 
i82 ARRAN 
 
 Stenth should none have had, to perte them through- 
 
 oute, 
 So were they set sad with poyntes round about." 
 
 The schiltron formation, we are told, was 
 well adapted for defence, and, despite their 
 small number and the vast odds against them, 
 had they been supplied with a good detachment 
 of cavalry to have scattered the terrible archers 
 of Edward, they would have probably held 
 their ground. As it was, they were exposed 
 to clouds of arrows and other missiles till 
 they were reduced, it is estimated, to a fourth 
 of their number, while the chosen English 
 cavalry which had previously tried to move 
 them, sat on their great horses and quietly 
 waited till the cloth yard arrows had done 
 what they, the veterans of the French war, had 
 failed to do. And so the lads of Argyll and 
 Arran and Bute, of Lanark and the Lennox, 
 of Ayr and Renfrew, of Fife and Strathearn 
 and Stirlingshire, — an army which, by the 
 way, would be composed almost entirely of 
 Gaelic - speaking persons, — was gradually 
 mown down till the field was encumbered with 
 their dead, to the number of 15,000 out of an 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 183 
 
 army of 20,000 — 15,000 of the finest soldiers 
 Europe could then produce. 
 
 THE BRANDANES AT PERTH 
 
 Sir John the Graeme was buried in the 
 old graveyard of Falkirk, where his grave may 
 still be seen. There the late Marquis of Bute 
 erected a monument to Stewart of Bonkill and 
 the Brandanes, though it is probable that 
 Stewart himself was actually buried in Bute. 
 
 After the battle, the leaders had to hide ; for 
 Edward's armies went through all the land, and 
 Scotland lay at his feet. For six months she 
 was almost conquered. Bute and Arran were 
 once more reg-arded as the safe refugees of the 
 patriotic party, and 
 
 " The earl Malcolm and Campbell part, but let 
 In Bute, succour with Synclar for to get." 
 
 and 
 
 ' Adam Wallace, and Lyndsay of Cragye, 
 Away they fled by nicht upon the sea ; 
 And Robert Bold, which was baith wyss and wicht ; 
 Arane they took to fend them at their micht." 
 
 During Wallace's absence in France, the 
 
i84 ARRAN 
 
 Scots fought and won the important threefold 
 battle of Roslin, which was then the talk of 
 Europe, and which had given so much en- 
 couragement to the Scots. Neither Wallace 
 nor " the Westland men " were present at this 
 battle, of which an excellent account has been 
 written by the late Mr. E. Bruce Low.* In 
 July 1300 Edward again set out to conquer 
 Scotland with a magnificent army ; and again 
 in 1302, after a short truce, when Wallace 
 gathered his old friends, Seton, Lauder, and 
 Lundy from the Bass, where they were in 
 hiding, and the Earl of Lennox, Sir Neil 
 Campbell, and the Brandanes from Bute and 
 Arran. For the Brandani had not yet had 
 their fill of fighting, though there was many a 
 sore heart in Arran and Bute, and for many a 
 day Falkirk was remembered by the vacant 
 places it had left. 
 
 "The lordis then and good Synclair 
 Soon out of Bute they made a ballinger t 
 For good Wallace." 
 
 And some time later, when they had no 
 
 * In Chambers's Journal, 1909. 
 t A ship or galley. 
 
A. 
 
 
THE DAYS OF WALLACE 185 
 
 men with which to attack Perth, Wallace 
 says : 
 
 " In to the North therefore let us bound, 
 In Ross ye know, good men a strength* have made, 
 Here then afif us t they will come without delay ; 
 Also in Bute the bishop good Sinclair, 
 (Fra he get wit he comes without mar) J 
 Good Westland men of Arane and Rauchle, 
 If they be warned they will all come to me." 
 
 So— 
 
 " Byscop Synclar intill all haste him dycht 
 Com out of Bute with seemly men to sicht ; 
 Out of the isles of Rauchle and Aran." 
 
 They appear to have been with Wallace in his 
 adventures till his capture by means of Sir 
 John Stewart of Menteith, but we have no 
 details of their doings. The great patriot 
 was captured on 5th August 1305. Attempts 
 have been made to whitewash Menteith, but 
 the fact remains that he, a friend, a brother in 
 arms, who had been ardently on the side of 
 the people and the independence of Scotland, 
 hunted down and, by a low trick, betrayed the 
 
 * Castle. t Let us go. 
 
 X When he gets knowledge of it he will come without more 
 ado. 
 
i86 ARRAN 
 
 patriot who had saved her alike from Edward 
 and from the Scoto-Norman nobles. 
 
 EDWARDS VENGEANCE 
 
 According to Hemingford's Chronicle, about 
 this time Thomas Bisset of the Glens, in Ire- 
 land, lord of the island of Rathlin, which had 
 given so many men to the support of Wallace, 
 and later sheltered Bruce, landed in Arran 
 with a large force, and held it for Edward. 
 Bisset's tenure, however, seems to have been 
 a short one, for in 1306 Sir John Hastings was 
 made Governor of Brodick. In the year pre- 
 vious Wallace had been taken and executed, 
 and Edward also executed an extraordinary 
 number of Bruce's friends, including his 
 brothers Neil, Thomas, and Alexander, his 
 brother-in-law Christopher Seton, and Simon 
 Eraser, the brilliant soldier but extraordinary 
 renegade of Roslin. 
 
PART VIII 
 
 HOW THE ARRAN MEN 
 
 SHELTERED KING ROBERT 
 
 BRUCE 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 THE AMBUSH AT BRODICK CASTLE 
 
 Many romances have left their traces on 
 
 Arran : that of the dim far-off days of the great 
 
 monuments of Machrie Moor, the defensive 
 
 camps, the stone circles ; the fine dreamers, 
 
 thinkers, and artists too, who strove for 
 
 high ideals in the highly civilised Dalriadic 
 
 colony, must have left their imprint on Arran 
 
 more than on any part of Scotland save 
 
 Kintyre and Knapdale. Finally came the 
 
 romance of the terrible days of the Norse 
 
 invasions, days of darkness and of blood ; and 
 
 of the later times when a leader of the island 
 
 race shattered the power of these arch-enemies 
 
 of the men of Arran. Yet not one of those 
 
 stirring stories can compare in picturesque- 
 
 ness, in the immediate touch with our own day, 
 
 with the charming tale of Bruce's adven- 
 
 189 
 
igo ARRAN 
 
 tures, when, defeated and deserted by all save 
 a mere handful, he sought refuge amongst 
 the bold and faithful hearts of Kintyre and 
 Arran. 
 
 It was worthy of the old quixotic spirit of 
 the sons of Somerled, who himself took up 
 the almost hopeless cause of Mac Eth, that 
 Angus and the Islesmen of Arran, who in blood 
 and in spirit traced themselves to the days 
 when King David gave Arran to Somer- 
 led, should receive with open arms the 
 deserted King of Scots : that at the moment 
 when most men worshipped the rising sun, 
 they should turn to that which seemed almost 
 submerged in the western waters, 
 
 Barbour, in his poem of ** The Bruce," tells 
 this, Arran's most moving story : — 
 
 "To King Robert again go we. 
 That in Rauchryne with his men. 
 Lay till the winter near was gane, 
 And of that lie his met has ta'en. 
 James of Douglas was angry 
 That they so long should idle lie. 
 And to Sir Robert Boyd said he : 
 ' The poor folk of this countree 
 Are chargit upon great manner 
 Of us, that idle lies here. 
 And I hear say, that in Arane, 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 191 
 
 In-till a stith castell of stane, 
 Are English men that, with strong hand, 
 Holds the lordship of that land. 
 Go we thither ; and well may fall, 
 Annoy them in some way we sail.' 
 Sir Robert said, ' I grant thar-till ; 
 To lie here more were little skill : 
 Therefore to Arane pas will we. 
 For I know right well that countree, 
 And the castle also know I. . . .' 
 With that they buskit them on-aue. 
 And at the king their leave have ta'en, 
 And went them forth then on their way. 
 Into Kintyre soon come are they ; 
 Then rowed always close to land, 
 Till at the night was near at hand ; 
 Then to Arane they went their way. 
 And safely there arrivit they.* 
 And under a brae their galley drew. 
 And then it holdit well enew 
 Their tackle, oars, and their stere ; 
 They hide all in the same manere. 
 And held their way right in the night. 
 So that, or day was dawned light. 
 They were ambushed the castle near, 
 Armit in the best manere ; 
 And though they wet were and wearie. 
 And for lang fasting all hungry. 
 They thought to hold them all privie 
 Till that they well their point might see. 
 Sir John the Hastings, at that tide 
 With knights of full mickle pride, 
 With squires and good yeomanry. 
 That were a weill great company, 
 
 * They landed in Lochranza, and marched through Glen 
 Chamadale to Brodick. 
 
192 ARRAN 
 
 Was in the Castle of Brodwick . . . 
 
 The time that James of Douglas, 
 
 As I am told, ambushed was ; 
 
 So happened at that time by chance, 
 
 With victuals and provisions, 
 
 And with clothing and arms. 
 
 The day before, in the evening. 
 
 The under warden arrived was 
 
 With three boats, quite near the place. 
 
 Where that the folk I spoke of before 
 
 Privily ambushed were. 
 
 Soon from the boats the batis saw them gae. 
 
 Of English men, thirty and mae. 
 
 Charged all with sundry things, 
 
 Some bore wine and some arms . . ." 
 
 Douglas and his party then burst from their 
 ambush, 
 
 "And slew all they might overtake. 
 The cry raised hideously and high. 
 From they, that dreading well to die. 
 Right as beasts can roar and cry 
 They rushit forth to the fighting ; 
 But when Douglas saw their coming. 
 On his men he knew he could rely. 
 And went to meet them hastily. 
 And when they of the castle saw . . . 
 They fled forouten more debate ; 
 And they them followed to the gate. 
 And slew of them, as they in past." 
 
 Douglas and his men then took the arms 
 and provisions they had captured, and went 
 their way. 
 
 Ten days later, the king, with all the men 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 193 
 
 who had followed him, set out in thirty-three 
 small galleys, and "arivit in Arane." 
 
 "And syne to the land is gane, 
 And we in a toune took shelter ; 
 And soon speired carefully, 
 If any man could tell tithand 
 Of any stranger in that land." 
 
 A woman tells him of Douglas and his men, 
 who had discomfited the warden. 
 
 " ' Dame,' said the king, ' should you me vis 
 To that place where their hiding is, 
 I will reward you but lesing : 
 For they are all of my own dwelling ; 
 And I right blithely would them see. 
 And right so trow I they would me.'" 
 
 And so the good woman led him, though, 
 as the islanders were all Gaelic speakers for 
 five hundred years afterwards, it is certain 
 that, if the poet writes truly, the king must 
 have learnt Gaelic in his youth in his mother's 
 land of Galloway or Carrick. 
 
 " They followed her as she them led. 
 Till at the last she shewed the stead, 
 To the king in a woody glen." 
 
 The place is said by tradition to have 
 
 been the ancient fort called Tornanschian in 
 
 Glencloy. 
 13 
 
194 ARRAN 
 
 The king wound his horn three times, and 
 Douglas knew the sound, and went forth with 
 Sir Robert Boyd. 
 
 "And blithely welcomed them the king, 
 That joyfull was of their meeting, 
 And kissed them and speired them 
 How they had fared in their hunting." 
 
 Bruce, according to the tradition, took up 
 his quarters in the caves of Drumadoon, which 
 are associated with his name, but he later 
 set to work to capture Brodick Castle, and 
 there took up his quarters. The spot is 
 shown in the castle where his little party used 
 to sit and chat and so beguile the time, and 
 the king used to tell stories of chivalry to 
 entertain his men ; for he was a genial and 
 kindly man was our strong-armed king, and 
 was not of the sort, as he proved later, who 
 forgot or neglected those who helped them. 
 
 BRUCE AND THE SPIDER 
 
 According to tradition, the cottage in which 
 the defeated and discouraged king watched 
 the spider In its many attempts to weave its 
 web, as described in the well-known ballad, 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 195 
 
 stood on the shore at Whiting Bay, and the 
 wife of the cottage, the story says, told him 
 his fortune, as Barbour describes, and brought 
 him her two sons to aid in the great fight 
 for the throne. The cottage is said to have 
 stood close by the standing - stone which 
 marks the place of his departure for the 
 Carrick coast. 
 
 THE RED LIGHT ON TURNBERRY BEACON 
 
 It was from the walls of Brodick that he 
 watched for the red light on Turnberry beacon 
 which was to lead him forth to many perilous 
 adventures. For one day the king decided 
 to send a man to his own realm of Carrick — 
 
 " To spy and speir how the kingdom 
 Is led, or who is friend or foe, 
 And if he sees we land may too, 
 On Turnberry's snook* he may 
 Make a fire on a certain day. 
 As token to us that we may 
 There arrive into safety." 
 
 The king then sent one Cuthbert, a native 
 of Carrick, who found, however, that few 
 
 * A small promontory or head. 
 
196 ARRAN 
 
 spoke well of the Bruce in Carrick, and that 
 the land, both high and low, hill and valley, 
 was occupied by Englishmen, 
 
 "That despised above all thing 
 Robert the Bruce, the doughty king." 
 
 He saw that in Turnberry Castle was the 
 Lord Percy with three hundred men, so he 
 decided not to light the fire, but to return to 
 his master. 
 
 "The king that into Arane lay, 
 When that coming was the day. 
 That he gave to his messenger. 
 
 After the fire he looked fast, 
 
 And as soon as the noon was past 
 
 He thought that he saw a fire, 
 
 By Turnberry burning weill schyre ; 
 
 And to his men he can it show 
 
 Every man thought that he it saw. 
 
 Then with blithe heart the folk began to cry, 
 
 ' Good king, speed you deliuerly, 
 
 So that we soon in the evening 
 
 Arrive, without perceiving.' 
 
 Then in short time men might them see 
 Shoot all their galleys to the sea." 
 
 And as the king was walking up and down 
 on the shore at Whiting Bay, opposite the 
 Castle of Turnberry, while his men were 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 197 
 
 making all ready, his hostess came to him 
 and told him his fortune. She warns him 
 of terrible things that he must go through, 
 but says that no might or strength of hand 
 shall send him forth again out of his land : — 
 
 " Within short time ye shall be king, 
 And have the land at your liking, 
 And overcome your foemen all." 
 
 And then, to show how much she believed 
 her own prophecy, she gave him her two 
 sons to accompany him. The king thanked 
 her, and was comforted, though not quite con- 
 vinced ; for, as the old poet says : — 
 
 " Indeed it is wonderful, perfay. 
 How any man through stars may 
 Know the things that are to come,. 
 Determinedly, all or some. 
 
 But me think it were great mastery 
 
 For any astrologer to say 
 
 This shall fall here and on this day." 
 
 Barbour says when the king left — 
 
 "This was in spring, when winter-tide 
 With his blasts, hideous to bide, 
 Was overpast, and birdis smale, 
 The thristill and the nightingale, 
 Began right merrily to sing. 
 
igS ARRAN 
 
 Into that time the noble king, 
 With his fleet and a few nienyie, 
 Three hunder I trow they might well be, 
 Was to the sea furth of Arane." 
 
 They rowed across without compass, 
 keeping the fire always in view ; and there 
 Cuthbert awaited them, full of fear, for the 
 fire, he said, had not been kindled by him, and 
 all the country was full of Bruce's foes. They 
 held counsel, and Edward Bruce, the king's 
 brother, settled matters by refusing to go 
 back. 
 
 THE BRANDANES AT BANNOCKBURN 
 
 Then Angus rose — " Lead on, brave Bruce, 
 The foemen who thy footsteps cross 
 
 In silence wrapped shall sleep to-night. 
 Or hie them back owre Milton Moss. 
 
 Here stand arrayed my Hielan men, 
 From yon green islands by Kintyre ; 
 
 Clan Cholla and the brave Brandanes ; 
 Cold is their steel — their hearts are fire ! 
 
 They stand arrayed to win or die ; 
 
 As on its prey the grey gled springs 
 So shall their claymores swiftly strike 
 
 For honour of a race of kings." 
 
 They charge ! MacDonald and MacCug, 
 MacBride, MacKinnon and MacLoy, 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, 
 Like some wild torrent mad with joy. 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 199 
 
 And who shall stand and stem that flood? 
 
 Back to the burn the foe they fling ; 
 Horo ! Hera ! the day is ours, 
 
 And Randolph breaks their wav'ring wing. 
 
 Then, 'mid the din of splintering lance 
 
 And crash of axe on iron mail, 
 Down all Clan Cholla's kilted ranks 
 
 The cry arose, " They fail ! they fail ! " 
 
 And thus they shattered Edward's might, 
 That we, their children, should be free, 
 
 To wanton in the wind that sweeps 
 
 Our islands by the western sea. — M'K. M'B. 
 
 Angus appears to have joined Bruce at the 
 Torwood, near Falkirk, and it was there that 
 the king addressed to him the famous words 
 quoted by Sir Walter Scott : " My hope is 
 constant in thee." 
 
 Bruce's army at Bannockburn consisted of 
 30,000 men, according to Barbour, and the 
 king divided them into four "battels," or 
 divisions : Randolph led the vanguard. Sir 
 Edward Bruce the second division, the 
 Steward, then a boy, with Douglas led the 
 third division, and 
 
 "The fourth battel the noble king 
 Took to himself in governing ; 
 And had intill his company 
 The men of Carrick all halely. 
 And of Argyle and of Kentyr, 
 
200 ARRAN 
 
 And of the Isles, whereof was Sir 
 Angus of Isla and Bute, all they. 
 He of the plain land had alsua 
 Of armyt men a meikle rout." 
 
 The description of the battle is well done 
 by Barbour, and full of detail probably taken 
 down from the tongues of people who had 
 actually been in the fight. A touch of humour 
 is given by a wise old knight, Sir Ingraham 
 Umfraville, who fears the men who would 
 fight on foot, and suggests to Edward that he 
 might win the battle by ordering his army to 
 retire behind their pavilions and tents, and so 
 tempt the enemy to leave their strong posi- 
 tion. He had evidently had experience of the 
 Scots ; he said to the king — 
 
 f/'You shall see that they, 
 
 Despite their lords, shall break away 
 And scale* them our harness to take. 
 And when we see them scaled away, 
 Prik we on them hardily." 
 
 The men of Randolph and Douglas and 
 Edward Bruce soon got to blows with the 
 enemy, and so eagerly the Scots fought, 
 
 "That they made neither noise nor cry 
 But dang on the other at their might." 
 
 * Disperse. 
 

SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 201 
 
 And when Bruce saw all his three divisions 
 doing well, he brought in "the Westland 
 men " with their terrible axes. 
 
 " So great dinging there was of dints 
 As weapons upon weapon stints, 
 And of spears so great brusting, 
 With such throwing and such thrusting, 
 Such girning and groaning, and so great 
 A noise, as they can other beat 
 
 That it was hideous for to hear." 
 
 At Bannockburn, in addition to Islesmen 
 and Highlanders under Angus of Isla and 
 Kintyre, Major tells us that in the force under 
 Douglas and Randolph, Bruce put " seven 
 thousand of the Border youth, who from their 
 earliest years had known no occupation than 
 fighting ; along with these he joined three 
 thousand Wild Scots, whose arms consisted 
 of a two-edged battle-axe,* equally sharp on 
 both sides ; men, these last, who will rush 
 upon the enemy with the fury of a lioness in 
 fear for her cubs." Again he says : " The 
 Wild Scots rushed upon them in their fury 
 
 * These axes seem to have been different from the usual 
 single-edged Lochaber axe of the West Highlands, if Major 
 is correct. 
 
202 ARRAN 
 
 as wild boars do : hardly would any weapon 
 make stand against their axes, handled as 
 they knew to handle them ; all around them 
 was a very shambles of dead men, and when, 
 stung by wounds, they were yet unable by 
 reason of the long staves of the enemy to 
 come to close quarters, they threw off their 
 plaids, and, as their custom was, did not 
 hesitate to offer their naked bellies to the 
 point of the spear. Now in close contact 
 with the foe, no thought is theirs but of 
 the glorious death that awaited them if only 
 they could compass his death too. Once 
 entered in the heat of the conflict, even as 
 one sheep will follow another, so they, and 
 hold cheap their lives. The whole plain is 
 red with blood ; from the higher parts to the 
 lower blood flows in streams. In blood the 
 heroes fought, yea knee-deep." 
 
 It would have been interesting to know 
 from which part of Scotland the particular 
 men Major refers to came. He probably 
 refers only to the general custom amongst 
 them. 
 
 In Bruce's six invasions of England which 
 
SHELTER OF KING ROBERT BRUCE 203 
 
 followed Bannockburn, it is probable that the 
 Brandanes were present. 
 
 Bruce lived for a time in Arran in 1326 
 with Menteith, who had long since come over 
 to his cause, and the king gave him back his 
 Arran lordship, and also conferred upon him 
 the district of Knapdale. 
 
PART IX 
 
 WHAT THE BRANDANES DID 
 FOR THE STEWARTS 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 WHAT THE BRANDANES DID FOR THE 
 STEWARTS 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STONES 
 
 The Brandanes followed Robert Bruce to 
 Tarbert, and were with the Steward in his 
 raids into England at Byland and at York, 
 where the English Queen came so near to 
 being captured. They were also with him at the 
 desperate siege of Berwick in 13 19; but the 
 greatest of their services to his house was at 
 the '• Battle of the Stones." 
 
 When Robert Bruce died in 1329, at only 
 fifty years of age, his son David was a boy 
 of only six years, and Scotland was again 
 plunged into trouble by the ambition of 
 Edward ni. of England, who at once com- 
 menced his grandfather's old tactics, disregard- 
 ing the treaty of perpetual peace between the 
 
 207 
 
2o8 ARRAN 
 
 two countries which had been signed in 1328. 
 The treaty had been full of promise for little 
 Scotland as a nation, though it meant bad 
 times for Border reiver and Highland cateran, 
 who had enriched themselves so often by the 
 national pastime of a raid into England, 
 during Bruce's reign. 
 
 Edward quietly put up Edward Baliol as 
 king, and bribed the easily purchased nobles 
 of Scotland to lend him their aid when he 
 sent Baliol with an army to invade Scotland. 
 Baliol was crowned at Scone, but the Scottish 
 people were roused, and gathering an army 
 they invaded England. At the famous battle 
 of Halidon Hill they got well beaten, for 
 there they forgot *' Bruce's Testament," in 
 which he told them always to avoid the 
 tented field, the formal pitched battle, and to 
 adopt always the tactics of what we would 
 to-day call the guerilla chief. At Halidon 
 Hill the Brandanes were almost annihilated. 
 
 The King of England then again invaded 
 Scotland on the rejection of Baliol by the 
 Scots, and reached Glasgow with a large 
 army. He sent his fleet into the Firth of 
 
BRANDANES AND STEWARTS 209 
 
 Forth, and made the Earl of Athol Guardian 
 and Governor of the kingdom. Athol then 
 summoned the freeholders of the Stewart- 
 lands — that is, in the south, in Renfrew, Ayr, 
 Carrick, Galloway, Selkirk, and so on, and, 
 having made them swear fealty to Baliol, he 
 marched into the Highlands, and "there was 
 no one who durst gainsay him or proclaim 
 himself Bruce's man." 
 
 THE STEWARD S ESCAPE FROM ROTHESAY 
 CASTLE 
 
 About the same time the young Robert 
 Stewart, heir to the throne, who was then 
 fifteen years old, was still, for fear of the 
 enemy, lurking in concealment in Rothesay 
 Castle, and was deriving great comfort from, 
 and having frequent conversations with, " two 
 lovers of peace, friends of King David," 
 John MacGilbride, Captain of Bute, and 
 William Heriot, then sojourning in the 
 barony ; and they found means to take him 
 over to Dunbarton Castle, bringing with them 
 the charters of Stewartland. 
 14 
 
2IO ARRAN 
 
 Stewart, finding his position still dangerous, 
 and resenting the conduct of Athol in laying 
 claim to the Stewart patrimony, took action, 
 sent for his friend the Lord of Lochawe, and 
 soon captured Dunoon Castle. Holinshead 
 (1585) thus describes the famous Battle of 
 the Stones, which was one of the greatest 
 of all the services of the Brandani to the 
 house of Stewart. 
 
 " Incontinently, therefore, Robert Steward 
 assembled his friends by the help of Dungall 
 Campbell of Lochquhow, and suddenly took 
 the Castell of Dunoon, sleaing all the English- 
 men and others who were found therein. . . . 
 The commons of Bute and Arran, glad of this 
 prosperous beginning, assembled together to 
 the number of 400 persons, and set forward, 
 that they might come to support Robert 
 Steward in such his late begun enterprizes : 
 and being incountered by the way by Alane 
 Lile, shiriff of Bute, they laid so lustilie about 
 them, that they slue the shiriffe (taking 
 prisoner John Gilbert, captaine of the Castell 
 of Bute) there in the field, and discomfited 
 5l11 his people, which they did after this manner. 
 
BRANDANES AND STEWARTS 211 
 
 These people of Bute (called the servants of 
 Bawdanus), seeing such sturs to be made by 
 Alan Lile, ran to a heap of stones not far 
 from them, and with great force pelting the 
 sheriffe, they in the end killed him with stones, 
 and put the rest to flight. Divers of them, 
 taken prisoners, were brought away, and pre- 
 sented to Robert Steward." 
 
 The Book of Pluscarden gives a few 
 further particulars of this interesting fight. It 
 says that when the natives of the county 
 heard that their lord Robert Stewart had thus 
 entered their country, "there flocked to him 
 ... a people called the Brandans, who came 
 to his assistance of their own accord." 
 
 " The sheriff of the county of Bute, Alan 
 Lisle, then tried to hem the Brandans in on 
 all sides in a narrow pass, and commenced to 
 kill them without mercy. They, seeing them- 
 selves unarmed and surrounded by armed 
 men, posted themselves in a strong place, and, 
 waiting the attack, commenced to shower 
 stones upon the sheriff and his men, till they 
 had killed Lyle and many others, and the rest 
 of his army took to flight. They then cut the 
 
212 ARRAN 
 
 sheriff's head off and presented it to the 
 Stewart, and also took prisoner John Gilbert- 
 son, the captain of Bute." 
 
 This appears to be the same Gilbertson or 
 MacGilbride who had secretly, with Heriot, 
 rowed the Steward to Dunbarton Castle. He 
 had evidently been made to swear allegiance 
 to Baliol, like many more, against his will. 
 Gilbertson, weare told, "^ surrendered the Castle 
 of Bute and did homage to the Steward as 
 " his natural lord," which, with his local name, 
 certainly means that he was a native. 
 
 From him branches of the MacBride and 
 Bannatyne families claim descent. Thus 
 genial Robert was able to make a stand in 
 the West, and was there joined by many 
 friends, including Thomas Bruce and the 
 men of Kyle. 
 
 For this most notable service of the Bran- 
 danes, Holinshead adds that Stewart, " in 
 recompense of this service, granted sundrie 
 privileges unto the inhabitants of Bute and 
 Arran : as, among other things, to be free from 
 paying tribute for their corn and grain. Such 
 
 * Book of Pluscarde?t. 
 
BRANDANES AND STEWARTS 213 
 
 felicities succeeding one another, caused many 
 of the Scots to join themselves with Robert 
 Steward, in hope to recover the realm out of 
 the Englishmen's hands." 
 
 Save Halidon Hill, the Scots had been 
 successful in all their raids, and Edward ofot 
 little from his invasions till at Neville's Cross, 
 where the Brandani were also present, David 
 II., then a youth of eighteen, refusing the ad- 
 vice of experienced men, suffered utter defeat. 
 The Scots army, gathered from Highlands 
 and Lowlands, made a hasty retreat to the 
 fortresses of the Border country, and King 
 David was carried captive into England by 
 one Sir John Copeland, an English knight. 
 
 THE king's bodyguard 
 
 Robert 11. did not forget the Brandani, and 
 he made them his bodyguard and gave them 
 charters for their lands, one of which, dated in 
 the second year of his reign, is still possessd by 
 the head of the ancient family of MacLoy or 
 MacLouie of Kilmichael and Whitefarland, 
 who took the name of Fullarton probably from 
 the Ayrshire estate of that name. 
 
214 ARRAN 
 
 THE BATTLES OF WILLIAM THE LYON AND 
 THE DISASTER AT PINKIE 
 
 The men of the South Isles were probably 
 amongst the Highland Scots and Galloway 
 men who followed William the Lyon in his 
 two attempts to recover Northumberland and 
 Cumberland, which had been won for Scot- 
 land by David i. and foolishly made over to 
 Henry, the English king, by treaty of 
 Malcolm the Maiden, a mere boy. William 
 was taken prisoner when jousting with a 
 small party of knights. Immediately the 
 Gaelic people of Scotland, indignant at the 
 encroachments of feudalism and the fondness 
 of the Scottish monarchs for foreign knights 
 and nobles, massacred the Normans and 
 English, and made what Fordun calls "a 
 most woeful and exceeding great persecution 
 of the English, both in Scotia and Galloway." 
 The island of Arran had reverted to the Stew- 
 arts, and the sheriffship of Arran and Bute 
 was given by Robert ii. to his natural son, 
 the ancestor of the present Sir Hugh Shaw 
 Stewartof Ardgowan and Blackball. Stewart's 
 
BRANDANES AND STEWARTS 215 
 
 second son was keeper of Brodick Castle in 
 1445-50, and received for the office the sum 
 of ;^20 anually, with the revenues of some 
 crown lands in the island. 
 
 A little later the chiefs of Kintyre and 
 their men paid Arran a number of visits, in 
 which they took away with them many un- 
 considered trifles, quite in the old spirit of 
 the Gall Gael. The castles of the island, 
 Lochranza, Brodick, and Kildonan were 
 fortified and garrisoned, and a number of 
 galleys were held in readiness by the Arran 
 lairds. In 1455 the famous Donald Balloch 
 sacked and dismantled Brodick, and in 1462 
 came the invasion of the Earl of Ross and 
 the Lord of the Isles, their object, according 
 to Gregory, being to upset the Scottish 
 monarchy. 
 
 The island of Arran was always an impor- 
 tant place, the prop of thrones, the refuge of 
 kings, the cradle of fighting men, the prize of 
 the liberator ; but of course the seat of govern- 
 ment was not entirely situated in Brodick 
 Castle, and it is difficult to see how these 
 gentlemen, with all their expert knowledge 
 
2i6 ARRAN 
 
 of raids and rebellions, could expect to win 
 the Scottish crown by capturing even that 
 mainstay of royalty ! Their navy was com- 
 posed of the enormous number of five hundred 
 galleys belonging to the Lord of the Isles. As 
 Mr. MacArthur puts it with unconscious 
 humour : " Though the expedition failed to 
 disturb the independence of Scotland, it was 
 most disastrous in its results on the islets of 
 the Clyde." 
 
 The islanders and west Highlanders gener- 
 ally were present to the number of four 
 thousand at the disastrous battle of Pinkie 
 in 1547. Beague, a Frenchman, who was 
 an eye-witness, says : "The Highlanders, who 
 show courage on all occasions, gave proof of 
 their conduct at this time, for they kept together 
 in one body, and made a very handsome and 
 orderly retreat. They are armed with broad- 
 swords, large bows, and targets." 
 
 Only the year previous the islands of Bute 
 and Arran had been burnt by the English, 
 assisted by MacNeill of Barra, and at this 
 time the position of the Hamiltons was 
 rendered precarious and unpleasant from 
 

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BRANDANES AND STEWARTS 217 
 
 these raids, as is shown by the various 
 bonds they made with the Arran lairds, the 
 MacAllisters, MacCooks, MacDavids, Mac- 
 Brides, MacKinnons, MacKilgirs, MacCairlies, 
 MacDonalds, and others, for mutual defence 
 in the sixteenth century, not many years after 
 their acquisition of the island. 
 
PART X 
 THE LATER LORDS OF ARRAN 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE LATER LORDS OF ARRAN 
 
 THE BOYDS 
 
 In 1465 Arran once more changed its rulers, 
 for it was given to the noted Regent, Lord 
 Boyd, the man who had made his fortune by 
 audaciously marrying his son to the Princess 
 Mary, sister of the king. Young Boyd was 
 made Earl of Arran, and received the island 
 as a marriage portion. The Regent became 
 extraordinarily unpopular, being regarded as 
 an upstart by the nobility, and he was ruined 
 and disgraced, so that his son fled, and all his 
 honours were confiscated and bestowed upon 
 the king's eldest son, afterwards James iv. 
 
 THE HAMILTONS 
 
 The keepership of Brodick Castle and 
 certain farms in Arran were granted to 
 
222 ARRAN 
 
 Hugh, Lord Montgomery, by James iv, in 
 1488. In 1503 James, Lord Hamilton, 
 husband of the Princess Mary, widow of the 
 Earl of Arran, was made Earl of Arran, and 
 to him were granted the Castle of Brodick and 
 the crown lands of the island. 1 506 was the 
 year of the general charter to the crown 
 tenants of Bute, and in this year some of the 
 Kintyre clans, chiefly the MacKays, made a 
 raid upon the island. In 1528 the castle was 
 burnt down by the Argyll clans, but was 
 rebuilt by James v., who was a frequent visitor 
 to the island. 
 
 In 1544 Henry viii. sent a fleet of ships 
 under the Earl of Lennox, which captured and 
 razed to the ground the oft-razed castle of 
 Brodick, and plundered the whole island. 
 Making an Englishman, Sir Rice Mansell, 
 governor, they also took " Rosie " castle, and 
 made the captain prisoner. Brodick was 
 again rebuilt and again raided, and taken by 
 another English expedition, this time under 
 the Earl of Sussex with a party of Irish. 
 
 In 1579 the great power of the Hamiltons 
 caused so much jealousy at court that they 
 
THE LATER LORDS OF ARRAN 223 
 
 were deprived of their estates, and Ninian 
 Stewart, nephew of King James vi., was made 
 keeper of Brodick. The title of Earl of 
 Arran was given to James Stewart of 
 Ochiltree, a favourite of the king, who com- 
 mitted so many crimes that the king was 
 ultimately forced to abandon him, and his 
 lordship of Arran reverted to the Hamiltons, 
 in whose hands it has remained since. 
 
 "LADY MARY 
 
 The most popular proprietor the island 
 has ever known is undoubtedly the present 
 one, Lady Mary Douglas Hamilton, only 
 child of the twelfth duke. She married the 
 Marquis of Graham in 1906, and she and 
 her husband are much attached to their 
 many-memoried island home. The Grahams 
 from the time of the great and chivalrous 
 Marquis, of Inverlochy fame, always got on 
 well with the Highland folk, and Arran was 
 never so contented or so prosperous as at 
 present. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alexander ill., King, at Largs, 
 149. 
 his high qualities as ruler, 
 160. 
 Am Bhinnean from the Corrie 
 
 shore, 6. 
 Arran, agriculture, state of, 
 in eighteenth century, 
 54-56. 
 Bruce in, 14. 
 Burrell's improvements in, 
 
 43- 
 charm of, 3. 
 committee, members of, 
 
 in 1770, 49- 
 Cromwell and, 17. 
 ethnology of, 80. 
 in the eighteenth century, 
 
 40. 
 language of, 80. 
 mountains of, 5. 
 people, condition of, in 
 
 1810, 59. 
 preachers, famous, 52. 
 rent-roll of, in 1778, 61. 
 romances of, 12. 
 runrig system in, 47. 
 Athelstan, King, at Brunan- 
 
 burh, 10, 
 
 Balfour, J. A., on the word 
 Brandan, 'j'j. 
 on St. Brendan's cell, 78. 
 
 15 
 
 Balloch, Donald, attacks 
 
 the isles, 215. 
 Bannatyne family, descent 
 
 of, 72. 
 Barbour's " Brus," 195- 
 
 197. 
 Barons of Arran and Bute, 
 
 70. 
 Boyle, Hon. Robert, hides at 
 
 Auchaleffan, 66. 
 " Brandane," meaning of the 
 word, Book of Arran on, 
 77- 
 FuUarton, on meaning of 
 
 word, 77. 
 Rev. Neil MacBride on 
 meaning of word, 77. 
 Brandanes, the, at battle of 
 Bannockburn, 198. 
 at battle of Falkirk, 169. 
 at battle of Halidon Hill, 
 
 208. 
 at battle of Neville's Cross, 
 
 213. 
 at battle of Pinkie, 214. 
 at " Battle of the Stones," 
 
 2 ID. 
 at battle of Stirling Bridge, 
 
 160. 
 at Perth with Wallace, 
 
 183. 
 follow William the Lyon, 
 214. 
 
226 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brandanes, the, form the 
 King's bodyguard, 213. 
 slay the sheriff of Bute, 
 
 210. 
 under Wallace, 166. 
 what they did for the 
 Stewarts, 207. 
 Brannan MacLir, 79. 
 Brendan, St., of Clonfert, 
 78. 
 cell of, in Arran, 78. 
 cell of, in Kintyre, 78. 
 Brian, King, of Munster, his 
 
 good nature, 13. 
 Brodick Castle, 189. 
 attack on men of, by 
 
 Douglas, 194. 
 captured by Bruce, 194. 
 Bronze Age burials in Arran, 
 
 96. 
 Brown or MacBraon family, 
 
 4- 
 Thomas, member of Arran 
 committee of 1770, 48. 
 Bruce at Bannockburn, 198. 
 at Glen Cloy and Druma- 
 
 doon, 193-194. 
 at King's Cross, 194. 
 invades England, 292. 
 lands in Arran, 193. 
 leaves for Turnberry, 195. 
 treaty of perpetual peace 
 with England, 208. 
 Brunanburh, battle of, 126. 
 Burrell, John, his improve- 
 ments in Arran, 43. 
 his diary, 54. 
 Bute charter of 1506, 70. 
 
 Caisteal Abhail mountain, 5. 
 Canada, lower, Arran men 
 
 settle in, 57. 
 Castle of Arran (Brodick), 
 
 27. 
 
 Castle of Arran, granted to 
 
 Montgomery, 29. 
 keepers of, 28. 
 Lochranza, given by 
 
 Menteith to Campbell, 
 
 of Lochawe, 29. 
 rebuilding of, 27. 
 Caves, Bennan Head, ancient 
 
 remains found at, 33. 
 Drumadoon associated 
 
 with Bruce and with 
 
 Fion, 31. 
 Kilpatrick, the " Preaching 
 
 Cave," 32. 
 Kilpatrick, school held in, 
 
 32. 
 Ceum na Cailleach mountain, 
 
 5- 
 Chaleur Bay, settlement of 
 
 Arran men at, 7. 
 Chapels, Arran, 21. 
 
 Kilbride, granted by John 
 
 of Menteith to monks of 
 
 Kilwinning, 21, 22. 
 Kilbride, removal of ancient 
 
 sculptured cross from, 
 
 .23. 
 Kilmichael, Glen Cloy, 25. 
 Kilmory, 23. 
 Kilmory, granted to monks 
 
 of Kilwinning, 23. 
 Kilpatrick, 25. 
 Sannox, 26. 
 Shisken, 25. 
 Charters granted to Arran 
 
 men by Robert ll., t^i- 
 Cioch nan h'oige mountain, 
 
 its changing character, 
 
 5- 
 Cir Mhor mountain, 5. 
 Clontarf, battle of, 129. 
 Cook family, see MacCug. 
 Corrie, 7. 
 high, 80. 
 
INDEX 
 
 227 
 
 Corrie, Killing Stone at, 18. 
 Couper, George, member of 
 
 Arran committee of 
 
 1770, 48. 
 Craig, Peter, his school in the 
 
 Kilpatrick cave, 32. 
 Craig na Cuiroch, fort of, 
 
 107. 
 Crawford family, 71, 75. 
 now custodians of Baul 
 
 Muluy, 33. 
 Patrick, prize-winner in 
 
 1777, 50- 
 Cromwell and Arran, 17. 
 his fear of the Dutch 
 
 seizing the islands, 17. 
 his soldiers killed by the 
 Arran men, 17. 
 Carrie family, 71. 
 John, prize-winner in 1776, 
 50. 
 
 Dalriadic colony, its great 
 
 promise, 13. 
 Davidson family, see under 
 
 MacDavid. 
 Douglas, Sir James, lands in 
 
 Arran, 191. 
 his ambush at Brodick, 
 
 192. 
 Drumadoon, fort at, 104. 
 
 caves at, 31. 
 Dun Fion, fort at, 106. 
 
 Edward i. of England, how 
 
 he persecuted the Scots, 
 
 161. 
 his award to Baliol, 163. 
 his conduct at Berwick, 
 
 164. 
 Edward III. breaks the 
 
 treaty of perpetual peace, 
 
 208. 
 Ethnology of Arran, 96. 
 
 Evictions in Arran, 57, 58, 
 
 59- 
 in Highlands, Somerville 
 
 on, 64. 
 in Highlands, MacKenzie 
 
 on, 64. 
 in Highlands, Dr. Donald 
 
 MacLeod on, 64. 
 
 Falkirk, Brandanes at the 
 
 battle of, 169. 
 Families, old, in Arran, 69. 
 
 their ancient rights, 46. 
 Feudal system, evil influence 
 of, 161. 
 how it enslaved the people, 
 162. 
 Fionn, mythological char- 
 acter, 16. 
 his name in word Arran, 
 
 16. 
 his cave at Drumadoon, 32. 
 legends of, in Arran, 16. 
 Forts and camps, ancient, 
 
 104. 
 Fullarton, see MacLouie, 71, 
 75. 
 
 Gall Gael, meaning of the 
 
 word, 123. 
 Geology of Arran, 30. 
 Glen Ashdale, fort in, 105. 
 Glen Cloy, Bruce in, 14. 
 
 in Pennant's time, 15. 
 Glenrickard, meaning of 
 
 name, 15. 
 Glen Sannox scenery, 5. 
 
 Chapel, 26. 
 
 hills, 6. 
 
 Killing Stone at, 18. 
 Goatfell, from Brodick lanes, 
 
 7. 
 murder of E. R. Rose on, 
 26. 
 
228 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Godred Crovan, original of 
 Hamlet, 130. 
 defeated bySomerled, 135. 
 his tyranny, 134. 
 the Black King of Man 
 and the Isles, 133. 
 Gow, David, poem by, 8. 
 
 Hakon of Norway at Lam- 
 lash, 10. 
 defeat of, by Alexander, 10. 
 Hamilton, Duke of, killed at 
 Worcester, 18. 
 sends letter to Prince 
 
 Charles Edward, 65. 
 sympathy with the Stew- 
 arts, 65, 
 Hamilton, Lady Mary, 
 marries the Marquis of 
 Graham, 223. 
 Hamilton, Lord James, 
 marries the King's sister, 
 222. 
 Hamilton, Marquis of loyal 
 to Charles I., 17. 
 beheaded, 17. 
 Hamilton, Patrick, member 
 Arran committee, 1770, 
 48. 
 John, member Arran 
 
 committee, 1770, 48. 
 John, member Arran 
 committee, 1770, 48. 
 Hamiltons deprived of 
 their titles and estates 
 in 1579, 223. 
 get grant of Brodick 
 Castle and Crown lands 
 in Arran in 1503, 222. 
 made Earls of Arran, 222. 
 restored to their titles, 
 223. 
 Harald Harfaager in the 
 Hebrides, 117. 
 
 Henderson, Rev. George, on 
 Norse influence on 
 Scotland, 122. 
 
 Holy Island, charm of, 10. 
 cave of Molios and its 
 runic inscription, 11. 
 
 Hunter family, 71, 75. 
 
 Intermarrying in Arran, 
 statement regarding, 63. 
 lona. Christians of, 116. 
 monastery of, sacked by 
 Norsemen, 123. 
 
 Johnson, A. H., on the 
 Northmen, 124. 
 
 Kappey, F. E., sonnet on 
 
 Arran, i. 
 Kelso family, 71, 75. 
 Kennedy family, 71, 75. 
 Kerr family, 71, 75. 
 Kilbride graveyard, 22. 
 
 ancient cross from, 23. 
 Kilmichael in Glen Cloy, 15. 
 
 Fullartons of, 14. 
 
 remains of, at Shisken, 25. 
 
 Language of Arran, the im- 
 portance of preserving 
 it, 81. 
 
 Largs, battle of, 143. 
 Alexander's tactics at, 149. 
 
 MacAllister family, 71, 75. 
 Hector, member of Arran 
 
 committee of 1770, 48. 
 John (Rev.), life of, 53. 
 MacArthur, Rev. John, his 
 book on Arran, 56. 
 on the old Arran lands, 
 60. 
 MacBraon, MacBrayne, or 
 Brown family, 71. 
 
INDEX 
 
 229 
 
 MacBride, Neil (Rev.), mini- 
 ster of Kilmory, 53. 
 
 family, 71, 75. 
 
 Neil (Rev.), Lamlash, on 
 the old Arran Barons, 
 
 IZ- 
 on the meaning of the 
 word Brandani, ']']. 
 MacBride, Alexander (Rev.), 
 his New Statistical Ac- 
 count of Kilmory Parish, 
 57. 
 on the Arran evictions, 
 
 57. 
 Charles of Shedag and St. 
 
 Molios Chapel, 23. 
 Duncan, member Arran 
 
 committee of 1770, 48. 
 James (writer), on Arran 
 and " the Forty-five," 65. 
 MacCug or MacCook family 
 of Bennicarigan, 71, 75. 
 Archibald, preacher, 53. 
 Finlay, preacher, 53. 
 John, member of the 
 Arran committee, 1770, 
 48. 
 MacDavid or Davidson 
 family, 71, 75- 
 Peter, preacher, 53. 
 MacGregor, Alexander, 
 
 member of Arran com- 
 mittee of 1770, 48. 
 James, sent to Prince 
 Charles Edward with 
 letter by Duke of 
 Hamilton, 65. 
 William, 48. 
 MacKelvie family, 71. 
 MacKenzie family, 71. 
 MacKillop family, 71. 
 Angus, prize-winner, 1770, 
 50. 
 MacKinnon family, 71, 75. 
 
 MacKinnon, Alexander, fam- 
 ous preacher, 32. 
 Alexander, prize-winner, 
 
 1777, so- 
 one of clan killed in 
 
 encounter with Revenue 
 
 officers, 32. 
 MacKintosh family, keepers 
 
 of Stone Globe of St. 
 
 Muluy, 35. 
 MacKirdy family, descent 
 
 of, 72. 
 MacLeod, Dr. Donald, on 
 
 Highland evictions, 
 
 64. 
 MacLouie, MacLoy, or 
 
 Fullarton of Kilmichael 
 
 and Whitefarland, family 
 
 of, 71, 72,75- 
 MacMaster family, 71. 
 MacMhurrich, MacVurich, 
 
 Murchie, or Curfie 
 
 family, 72. 
 MacMillan, Angus, preacher, 
 
 53- 
 Daniel, publisher, 86. 
 family, 71. 
 of Knap, Argyll, 92. 
 MacNicol (or Nicol) family, 
 
 71. 
 MacNish family, 71. 
 Magnus Barefoot in the 
 Hebrides, 130. 
 adopts the Highland dress, 
 
 132. 
 second visit of, 131. 
 Molios, Saint, Cave of, on 
 
 Holy Island, 10. 
 Montgomerys, the, in Arran, 
 29. 
 Alexander, Lochranza 
 
 Castle granted to, 29. 
 
 of Skelmorlie, Lochranza 
 
 Castle granted to, 30. 
 
230 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Muluy, Saint, virtues of his 
 
 Stone Globe, 33. 
 Munro, Neil, his description 
 
 of Argyll in John 
 
 Splendid, 41. 
 Murray, Patrick, factor of 
 
 Arran, 41. 
 
 Nicol or MacNicol, Archibald, 
 
 preacher, 53. 
 Norman nobility of Scotland, 
 
 miserable conduct of, 
 
 166, 168, 169. 
 Norse, ancient, type of skull, 
 
 100. 
 and the feudal system, 
 
 115. 
 first attacks of, 121. 
 in Arran, 114. 
 influence on Scotland, 
 
 122. 
 influence. Rev. George 
 
 Henderson on, 122. 
 influence, A. H. Johnson 
 
 on, 124. 
 type to-day, loi. 
 
 Ogg, William, member Arran 
 committee of 1770, 48. 
 
 Paterson, John, factor of 
 
 Arran, on love of country 
 
 of Arran people, 4. 
 Pennant on Arran men, 61, 
 
 62. 
 his description of the songs 
 
 sung at daily tasks, 62. 
 on families who sheltered 
 
 Bruce, 75. 
 Pette (?), John, member 
 
 Arran committee of 
 
 1770, 48. 
 Prehistoric remains in Arran, 
 
 91. 
 
 Prehistoric remains in Arran, 
 Dr. James Bryce on, 93. 
 Dr. T. H. Bryce on, 93, 98. 
 The Book of Arran on, 
 94, 99- 
 
 Robertson family, 71. 
 Rose, Edwin R., murder of, 
 on Goatfell, 26. 
 
 Saint Molios' Cell or Kil on 
 Holy Island, 10. 
 Bride's, Lochranza, 25. 
 Bride's, Lamlash, 22. 
 Bride's, Bennan, 25, 
 Eoin's Cell, 25. 
 Mary's (Kilmory), 23. 
 Michael's, Shisken, 25. 
 Michael's, Sannox, 26. 
 Michael's, Glen Cloy, 25. 
 Muluy, his Stone Globe, 
 
 33- 
 Patrick's Cell, 25. 
 Scotland, state of agriculture 
 
 in, 42. 
 Shaw family, 71. 
 
 Robert, prize-winner, 1777, 
 
 Rev. William, maker of the- 
 first Gaelic dictionary, 
 
 24- . 
 his friendship with Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, 85. 
 Shisken and Machrie Moor, 
 
 118. 
 Smuggling in Arran, 50. 
 in Essex a parallel, 50. 
 Snorro Sturleson, his account 
 of the battle of Largs, 
 
 147. 
 Somerled, the Hammer of the 
 Norsemen, 137. 
 an opposing force to feu- 
 dalism, 139. 
 
INDEX 
 
 231 
 
 Somerled defeats Godred, 
 142. 
 his character, 138. 
 his death at Renfrew, 
 
 143- 
 his great work for Scotland, 
 
 ,^37- 
 his personal appearance, 
 
 139. 
 his treaty of 11 59, 142. 
 marries daughter of King 
 Olave the Red, 136. 
 
 Steward Alexander, the, 
 marries Jane, Nic 
 Somerled, 146. 
 
 Steward's escape from Rothe- 
 say Castle, 209. 
 
 Stewart family, 71, 75. 
 
 Rev. Gershom, minister 
 of Kilbride, member of 
 Arran committee, 1770, 
 48. 
 author of the Old Statisti- 
 cal Account of Kilbride. 
 
 Stewarts, the, as rulers, 
 160. 
 
 Stirling Bridge, battle of, 
 160. 
 
 Stone Age remains in Arran, 
 92. 
 
 Tacitus's description of the 
 
 Caledonians, 102. 
 Thomson family, 71. 
 
 Alexander, prize-winner, 
 
 1777, 50. 
 burial-place at Shisken, 24. 
 Thorfin, Jarl of Orkney, 
 conquers part of Scot- 
 land, 129. 
 Tornanschian, fort of, de- 
 scribed by Pennant, 108. 
 Bruce at, 108. 
 
 Viking Age in Arran, 114. 
 
 Wallace, days of, 159. 
 
 his sweetheart murdered 
 
 by Haselrig, 165. 
 White, Captain, on St. 
 
 Brendan's cell at Skip- 
 
 nish, 78. 
 Mr. J. A. Balfour on, 78. 
 Wilson, Sir Daniel, on the 
 
 Scandinavian type of 
 
 skull, 100. 
 
AUG 
 
 19 1912 / 
 
 6 
 
iS'oJ/