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The clan, a martial and hardy, though not a
numerous race, originally belonging to Caithness, but in the sixteenth century they
settled in Sutherland. Mr Smibert thinks they are perhaps among the very purest remnants
of the Gael to be found about Sutherlandshire and the adjoining parts. "It is
probable", he says, "that they belong to the same stock which produced the great
body of the Sutherland population. But tradition gives the chieftains at least a Norse
origin. They are said to have been descended from Gun, or Gunn, or Guin, second son of
Olaus, or Olav, the Black, one of the Norwegian kings of Man and the Isles, who died 18th
June 1237. One tradition gives them a settlement in Caithness more than a century earlier,
deducing their descent their descent from Gun, the second of three sons of Olaf, described
as a man of great bravery, who, in 1100, dwelt in the Orcadian isle of Graemsay. The above
mentioned Gun or Guin is said to have received from his grandfather on the mother's side,
Farquhar, Earl of Ross, the possessions in Caithness which long formed the patrimony of
his descendants: the earliest stronghold of the chief in that country being Halbury
castle, or Easter Clythe, situated on a precipitous rock, overhanging the sea. From a
subsequent chief who held the office of coroner, it was called Crowner Gun's Castle. It
may be mentioned here that the name Gun is the same as the Welsh Gyynn, and the Manx
Gawne. It was originally Gun, but is now spelled Gunn.
The clan Gunn continued to extend their possessions in Caithness till about the middle of
the fifteenth century, when, in consequence of their deadly feuds with the Keiths, and
other neighbouring clans, they found it neccessary to remove into Sutherland, where they
settled on the lands of Kildonan, under the protection of the Earls of Sutherland, from
whom they had obtained them. Mixed up as they were wth the clan feuds of Caithness and
Sutherland, and at war with the Mackays as well as the Keiths, the history of the clan up
to this time is full of incidents which have more the character of romance than reality.
In one place Sir Robert Gordon, alluding to "the inveterat deidlie feud betuein the
clan Gun and the Slaightean-Aberigh", - a branch of the Mackays, - he says: "The
long, the many, the horrible encounters which happened between these two trybed, with the
bloodshed and infinit spoils committed in every part of the diocy of Catteynes by them and
their associats, are of so disordered and troublesome menorie", that he declines to
give details.
Previous to their removal into Sutherland, George Gun, commonly called the Chruner, or
Coroner, and by the Highlanders, Fear N'm Braisteach-more, from the great brooch which he
wore as the badge of his office of coroner, was killed by the Keiths of Caithness.
The Crowner's eldest son, James, succeeded as chief, and he it was who, with his family
and the greater portion of his clan, removed into Sutherland. The principal dwelling-house
of the chiefs was, thereafter, Killernan, in the parish of Kildonan, until the house was
accidentally destroyed by fire about 1690. From this chief, the patronymic of
Mac-Sheumais, or MacKeamish, (that is, the son of James), which then became the Gaelic
sept-name of the chiefs, is derived. From one of the sons of the Crowner, named William,
are descended the Wilsons of Caithness, (as from a subsequent chief of the same name, the
Williamsons), and from another, Henry, the Hendersons. Another son, Robert, who was killed
with his father, was the progenitor of the Gun Robsons; and another son, John, also slain
by the Keiths, of the Gun MacEans, or Macians, that is Johnsons, of Caithness. The Gallies
are also of this clan, a party of whom settling in Ross-shire being designated as coming
from Gall'aobh, the stranger's side.
William Gunn, the eighth MacKeamish, an office in the army, was killed in India, without
leaving issue, when the chiefship devloved on Hector, great-grandson of George, second son
of Alexander, the fifth MacKeamish, to whom he was served nearest male heir, on the 31st
May 1803, and George Gunn Esq. of Thives, country of Sutherland, his only son, became, on
his death, chief of the clan Gunn, and the tenth MacKeamish.
Another Account of the Clan
BADGE: Craobh Aitean (juniperis
communis) juniper.
PIBROCH: Failte nan Guinneach.
 ROUND
the coasts of the
extreme north of Scotland, and notably on the
eastern and northern shores, the place-names have an interesting tale to
tell. These "wicks" and "oes" and "dales" speak
of the settlements of Norse and Danish rovers in
days now remote. For some five centuries, down to the time of the battle
of Largs, in 1263, that
part of the country, along with the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the
Hebrides, was, in fact, Norwegian territory, and to the present hour the
inhabitants, at any rate of the coast districts, have probably more
Norwegian than Scottish blood in their veins, This is not least true in
the case of the Clan Gunn, whose possessions lay in the Kildonan
district, about the upper waters of the River Helmsdale, where Ben
Grainmore towers two thousand feet against the sky,
and the mountain glens come down to the fertile strath of the Helmsdale
itself. The soil is fertile, the little mountain lochs abound with trout
and char, and red deer, grouse, ptarmigan, and blackcock have always been
plentiful on the moors, while grains of gold are even yet to be found in
the sand and gravel of the streams. It was a country to attract the wild
Norse rover, and round the Pictish towers or castles, of which the ruins
still remain, many a desperate onslaught must have taken place between the
older Pictish inhabitants and the Viking adventurers before these latter
secured possession of the region.
Clan Gunn, which had its home here in later centuries,
took its name and claimed descent from Guinn, second son of Olaf the
Black, King of Man and the Isles, who died in 1237. The Gaelic Guinneach signifies fierce, keen,
sharp, and is probably an accurate description of the outstanding
characteristics of the clan. From later chiefs of the race are descended
septs known in modern times by the names of Jamieson, Johnson, Williamson,
Anderson, Robson, and others, while the Gallies take their name from a
party of the clan which settled in Ross-shire, and was known as the
Gall-’aobh, or men from the stranger’s side.
The territory of the clan
lay on the border between the country of the Earls of Sutherland and the
Earls of Caithness, while to the west of it lay Strathnaver, the territory
of the Mackays, otherwise Lord Reay’s country. With all these neighbours
the Gunns from time to time had feuds and friendships, and some of the
episodes which occurred between them were among the most romantic and
desperate in the history of the north. Alike as friends and as foes the
Gunns appear always to have been held in the highest estimation. It is
obvious that, at a very early date, they had acquired the character of
being "bonnie fechters."
Perhaps the most
outstanding event in the history of the clan was the battle of AIt-no-gaun,
fought in the year 1478. The chief of that time, George Gunn, was then the
greatest man in the north, there being then no Earl of Sutherland to
overshadow him. Moreover, he held the dignity of Crowner, or coroner, then
a high officer of justice. In virtue of this office the chief wore as a
badge a large silver brooch, from which he was known as Fear a Bhuaisteach
mor. In his time a member of the family of Keith, afterwards Earls
Marischal, married the heiress of the Cheynes of Acrigil, and thus
obtained a footing on the borders of the Gunn country. The Gunns looked
with little pleasure upon the appearance of the followers of such a
powerful family in their neighbourhood, and accordingly disagreements and
a serious feud sprang up between them. With a view to an understanding a
meeting was held in the chapel of St. Tam, but this aggravated rather than
diminished the differences between the parties, and, matters having come
to a head, an arrangement was made to fight out the quarrel at an
appointed place. Each chief was to appear with his relations, a party of
not more than twelve horse, and the battle was to be fought to the death.
The place chosen was a
remote part of Strathmore, but when the Crowner and his eleven champions
reached the spot they found that the Keiths were double their number,
having treacherously mounted two men on each horse. This action, however,
merely enraged the Gunns, who hurled themselves into the combat with added
fury and desperation. Both sides fought till they could fight no more, and
when the battle was over the Crowner and seven of his clan lay dead, while
the Keiths were barely able to carry their slain and wounded from the
field. Of the Gunns the five who survived were all sons of the Chief, and
all wounded. As night fell they sat down by the bank of a stream, where
Torquil, the one most slightly wounded, washed and dressed the injuries of
the other four. As they talked over the disaster of the day the youngest
of them, Little Henry, burning to revenge defeat and the treachery of the
Keiths, and to recover his father’s sword, brooch, and armour, induced
two of his brothers—the only two still able to fight—to go with him in
pursuit of the victorious party. They came up with the latter at the
castle of Dairaid. By this time it was night, and through the narrow
window Henry Gunn and his brothers looked in and saw the Keiths drinking
ale and relating to their hosts, the Sutherlands, the incidents of the day’s
encounter. Little Henry watched his chance, and as the Chief of the Keiths
raised the tankard to his lips he bent his bow and sent an arrow through
his heart, at the same time calling out "Beannachd na Guinnich do ‘n
Chai"—the Gunn’s compliment to Keith! The company inside dashed
for the door, and as they came out several were killed by the Gunns, who
were waiting for them. It was no equal match, however, and the Gunns
presently retired under cover of the darkness, and making for the spot
where they had left their brother, all five retreated in safety to their
own country.
A hundred years later the
Chief of the Clan, Alastair Gunn, was again a man of much note and power
in the north. He had married a daughter of the Earl of Sutherland, and
felt himself entitled to hold his head high among the best in Scotland.
This, alas! led to his undoing. One day, about the year 1562, marching,
with his "tail" of followers behind him, along the High Street
of Aberdeen, he happened to encounter no less a person than Queen Mary’s
half-brother, the Earl of Moray, also with his followers. Owing to the
condition of the thoroughfares at that time it was not less a point of
honour than a matter of convenience to keep the crown of the causeway.
This the Earl, by reason of his rank, of course considered himself
entitled to, but the haughty Chief of the Gunns showed no disposition to
yield the point. In the upshot the Earl by means of one Andrew Munro,
entrapped Gunn at the Delvines, near Nairn, whence he
was carried to Inverness, where Moray
had him executed "under pretence of justice."
Twenty-three years later,
in 1585, the clan found itself involved against its neighbours on each
side, the Earls of Sutherland and Caithness, heads of the most powerful
houses then in the north. It looked as if the Gunns were to be the earthen
pipkin crushed between two iron pots, yet they seemed no whit dismayed,
and managed to hold their own in valiant fashion. The two earls planned to
come upon the Gunns from both sides at once, and, "thereby so to
compass them that no place of retreat might be left unto them." The
Gunns took up their position in an advantageous spot on the side of Ben
Grian. There their enemies, seeing them much fewer in number than
themselves, made the fatal mistake of thinking lightly of them. Instead of
waiting for the Sutherlands to come up and attack simultaneously, the
Sinclairs rushed impulsively forward. The Gunns waited till their enemies,
breathless with the steep ascent, were close upon them. Then they poured a
flight of arrows into them at close quarters, and, rushing down the slope,
cut down the commander of the Sinclairs with 120 of his men. The rest they
pursued till darkness fell. The Gunns were followed, however, by the Earl
of Sutherland’s force, which pursued them as far west as the shores of
Lochbroom. There the Gunns were brought to an encounter, when they were
defeated, their captain, George Gunn, being wounded and taken prisoner,
and thirty-two of the clan being slain.
Later in the same reign, in
1616, John, Chief of the Gunns, suffered for the part he was compelled to
play as an ally of the Earl of Caithness. The earl, being desirous of
visiting his displeasure upon a certain William Innes, brought pressure
upon the Chief of the Gunns to burn the corn stacks of Innes’s tenants.
This, John Gunn long refused to do, offering instead to "do his best
to slay William Innes." The earl, however, continued to insist; in
the end the corn stacks were burned, thereby no doubt inflicting severe
hardship upon the people of the district; and as a result the Chief of the
Gunns was rigorously prosecuted and imprisoned in Edinburgh.
A generation later a
notable member of the clan was Crowner or Colonel Gunn, a native of
Caithness, who, like so many other hardy Scots of that time made a place
and a name for himself in the wars abroad. He appears in Scottish history
when the Marquess of Montrose, then on the Covenanting side, was besieging
the Tower of Gight in Aberdeenshire. Word reached the Marquess that a King’s
force had landed at Aberdeen, and raising the siege he retreated
precipitately to Edinburgh. The force actually landed, however, was a
small one, and the most important of its officers was Crowner Gunn. On the
failure of the cause of Charles I. the Crowner returned to Germany, where
according to the historian of the house of Sutherland he became a
major-general in the imperial army, and a baron of the empire, marrying
"a rich and noble lady beside the imperial city of Ulm, upon the
Danube".
The early seat of the
Chiefs of the Clan was the old castle of Hallburg, the name of which
sufficiently indicates its Danish or Norwegian origin. In its time this
stronghold was considered impregnable. In later days the Chiefs of the
Gunns had their seat at the castle of Kilearnan till it was destroyed by
fire in 1690.
Strangely enough, after the
long warlike history of the clan, the chief means of its dispersion was
the introduction of the peaceful sheep. In the twenty years between 1811
and 1831 sheep-raising as a new industry displaced the old breeding of
black cattle in the Highlands of Scotland. To make way for it in this
district the notorious Sutherland clearances took place. In the former
year the population of Kildonan parish, which measures some 250 square
miles, numbered 1,574. To make way for sheep-farming most of that
population was removed to the neighbouring parish of Loth, and in the
glens where hundreds of families of the name of Gunn had for centuries had
their happy though humble and too often abjectly poor homes, nothing was
to be heard but the bleat of the sheep, the call of the grouse, and the
crow of the blackcock. In 1851 the parish of Loth was united to that of
Kildonan, and by this means the number of the population was more than
restored. Meanwhile, however, many of the old clan of the Gunns had gone
out to the world, never to return to the scenes of the doughty deeds of
their ancestors.
At the present day the
Chiefship of the clan is believed to rest with the family of Gunn of
Rhives, which is descended from the second son of MacSheumais, the fifth
Chief.
Among the members of the
clan who have attained name and fame may be enumerated Barnabas Gunn,
musical composer, who died organist of Chelsea Hospital in 1753; John Gunn,
author of an Historical Enquiry respecting the Performance of the Harp
in the Highlands, and other musical works, who flourished at the end
of the eighteenth century; William Gunn, Episcopal clergyman in England
and antiquarian writer, who, early in the nineteenth century, published
extracts from the Vatican MSS., an account of the Vatican tapestries, and
a tenth-century MS. of the Historia Britonum; Daniel Gunn
(1774-1848), the congregational minister, celebrated for his unemotional
preaching and his schools at Christchurch, Hampshire; and Robert Campbell
Gunn, the naturalist (1808-1881), who, when superintendent of convict
prisons in Tasmania, sent home many interesting specimens of previously
unknown plants and animals.
Septs of the Clan Gunn:
Gallie, Gunnson, Georgeson, Henderson, Johnson, Jamieson, Keene, Kean,
MacCorkill, MacComas, MacIan, MacKames, MacKeamish, MacKean, MacOmish,
MacRob, MacWilliam, Manson, Nelson, Robison, Robson, Sandison, Swanson,
Williamson, Wilson.
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