MACLELLAN,
a surname of considerable antiquity in the south of Scotland. The
Maclellans of Bombie, a family at one period of great power and
influence, supposed originally to have come from Ireland, were, in
ancient times, sheriffs of Galloway. Duncan Maclellan is mentioned
in a charter of Alexander II. in 1217. Among the faithful adherents
who accompanied Sir William Wallace, when he sailed from
Kirkcudbright for France, after his defeat at Falkirk in 1293, was
Maclellan the then laird of Bombie. The family became so flourishing
about the beginning of the 15th century that, according
to Crawford (Peerage, p. 237), there were no fewer than 14
knights of the name in Galloway at the same time. The account of the
murder of Sir Patrick Maclellan, tutor of Bombie, by the 8th
earl of Douglas, in Thrieve castle, in 1452, has been already
related. (See KIRKCUDBRIGHT, baron.) Local tradition states that
when James II., in 1455, arrived with an army at Carlinwark, to
besiege the castle of Thrieve, the Maclellans presented him with the
celebrated piece of ordnance, called Mons Meg, wherewith to
batter down the stronghold of the rebellious chieftain.
Sir William Maclellan of Bombie, knighted by James IV., fell
at Flodden with a number of his followers. His son, Thomas Maclellan
of Bombie, was killed in a feud with Gordon of Lochinvar at the door
of St. Giles’ church, Edinburgh, 11th July, 1526. His
great-grandson, Sir Robert Maclellan, was created Lord
Kirkcudbright, 25th May 1633. (See KIRKCUDBRIGHT, baron.)
There were also the Maclellans of Barclay, descended from the
Maclellans of Barmagachen, of the original bombie line.
Although the crest of the Maclellans was a Moor’s head on the
point of a sword, in allusion to their recovery of the estate of
bombie, after being forfeited, by the slaying of a gipsy chief who
infested Galloway, as already related under the article
KIRKCUDBRIGHT, they sometimes used for crest a mortar-piece, with
the motto, “Superbo frango,” having reference, we are inclined to
suppose, to the great iron gun named Mons Meg, which is said to have
been made by a local smith, one Brawny Kim or M’Kim and his sons. As
a reward for constructing so noble an engine of war, M’Kim is stated
to have obtained the forfeited lands of Mollance, in the
neighbourhood of Thrieve castle, hence this gun was called Mollance
Meg, that being the name of the smith’s wife, afterwards corrupted
into Mons Meg. There is, however, an impression on the cannon itself
that it was cast at the town of Mons in Flanders, whence it took its
name. Nisbet thinks that the Maclellans adopted a mortar-piece or
bomb for their crest, in allusion to their designation of Bombie, a
somewhat fanciful notion certainly.
