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The clan Fingon or the Mackinnons, a clan
belonging to the Siol Alpine, are said to have sprung from Fingon, brother of Anrias or
Andrew, an ancestor of the Macgregors. This Fingon or Finguin is mentioned in the MS of
1450 as the founder of the clan Finguin, that is, Mackinnons. Of the history of this clan,
Mr Skene says, little is known. At an early period they became followers of the Lords of
the Isles, and they appear to have been engaged in few transactions "by which their
name is separately brought forward".
Their seat was in the islands of Skye and Mull, and the first authentic notice of them is
to be found in an indenture (printer in the Appendix to the second edition of Hailes'
Annals of Scotland) between the Lords of the Isles and the Lord of Lorn. The latter
stipulates, in surrendering to the Lord of the Isles the island of Mull and other lands,
that the keeping of the castle of Kerneburg in the Treshinish Isles, is not to be given to
any of the race of clan Finnon. "This", says Mr Gregory, "proves that the
Mackinnons were then connected with Mull. They originally possessed the district of Griban
in that island, but exchanged it for the district of Mishnish, being that part of Mull
immediately to the north and west of Tobermory. They, likewise, possessed the lands of
Strathbairdle in Skye, from which the chiefs usually took their style. Lauchlan Macfingon,
or Mackinnon, chief of his clan, witnessed a charter by Donald, Lord of the Isles, in
1409. The name of the chief in 1493 in uncertain; but Neil Mackinnon of Mishnish was at
the head of the tribe in 1515". Two years afterwards this Neil and several others,
described as "kin, men, servants, and part-takers" of Lauchlan Maclean of
Dowart, were included in a remission which that chief obtained for their share in the
rebellion of Sir Donald Macdonald of Lochalsh. In 1545 the chief's name was Ewen. He was
one of the barons and council of the Isles who, in that year, swore allegiance to the king
of England at Knockfergus in Ireland.
"In consequence", says Mr Skene, "of their connection with the Macdonalds,
the Mackinnons have no history independent of that clan; and the internal state of these
tribes during the government of the Lords of the Isles is so obscure that little can be
learned regarding them, until the forfeiture of the last of these lords. During their
dependence upon the Macdonalds there is but one event of any importance in which we find
the Mackinnons taking a share, for it would appear that on the death of John of the Isles,
in the fourteenth century, Mackinnon, with what object it is impossible now to ascertain,
stirred up his second son, John Mor, to rebel against his eldest brother, apparently with
a view to the chiefship, and his faction was joined by the Macleans and the Macleods. But
Donald, his elder brother, was supported by so great a proportion of the tribe, that he
drove John Mor and his party out of the Isles, and pursued him to Galloway, and from
thence to Ireland. The rebellion being thus put down, John Mor threw himself upon his
brother's mercy, and received his pardon, but Mackinnon was taken and hanged, as having
been the instigator of the disturbance". This appears to have taken place after 1380,
as John, Lord of the Isles, died that year. In the disturbances in the Isles, during the
16th century, Sir Lauchlan Mackinnon bore an active part.
As a proof of the common descent of the Mackinnons, the Macgregors and the Macnabs,
although their territories were far distant from each other, two bonds of friendship
exist, which are curious specimens of the manners of the times. The one dated 12th July
1606, was entered into between Lauchlan Mackinnon of Strathaidle and Finlay Macnab of
Bowaine, who, as its tenor runs, happened "to forgether togedder, with certain of the
said Finlay's friends, in their rooms, in the laird of Glenurchy's country, and the said
Lauchlan and Finlay, being come of ane house, and being of one surname and lineage,
notwithstanding the said Lauchlan and Finlay this long time bygane oversaw their awn
dueties, till udderis, in respect of the long distance betwixt their dwelling
places", agreed, with the consent of their kin and friends, to give all assistance
and service to each other. And are "content to subscribe to the same, with their
hands led to the pen". Mackinnon's signature is characteristic. It is
"Lauchland, mise (i.e. myself) Mac Fingon". The other bond of manrent, dated at
Kilmorie in 1671, was between Lauchlan Mackinnon of Strathairdle and James Macgregor of
Macgregor, and it is therein stated that "for the special love and amitie between
these persons, and condescending that they are descended lawfully fra twa breethren of
auld descent, wherefore and for certain onerous causes moving, we witt ye we to be bound
and obleisit, likeas by the tenor hereof we faithfully bind and obleise us and our
successors, our kin, friends, and followers, faithfully to serve ane anither in all causes
with our men and servants, against all who live or die".
During the civil wars the Mackinnons joined the standard of the Marquis of Montrose, and
formed part of his forces at the battle of Inverlochy, Feb 2, 1645. In 1650, Lauchlan
Mackinnon, the chief, raised a regiment of his clan for the service of Charles II, and, at
the battle of Worcester, in 1646, he was made a knight banneret. His son, Daniel Mohr, had
two sons, John, whose great-grandson died in India, unmarried, in 1808, and Daniel, who
emigrated to Antigua, and died in 1720. The latter's eldest son and heir, William
Mackinnon of Antigua, an eminent member of the legislature of that island, died at Bath,
in 1767. The son of the latter, William Mackinnon of Antigua and Binfield, Berkshire, died
in 1809. The youngest of his four sons, Henry, major-general Mackinnon, a distinguished
officer, was killed by the explosion of a magazine, while leading on the main storming
party, at Cindad Rodrigo, Feb 29, 1812. The eldest son, William Mackinnon, died young,
leaving, with two daughters, two sons, William Alexander Mackinnon, who succeeded his
grandfather, and Daniel, colonel of the Coldstream Guards.
William Alexander Mackinnon of Mackinnon, M.P., the chief magistrate and deputy-lieutenant
for the counties of Middlesex, Hampshire, and Essex, born in 1789, succeeded in 1809. He
married Emma, daughter of Joseph Palmer, Eaq of Rush House, county Dublin, with issue,
three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, William Alexander, also M.P., born in
1813, married daughter of F.Willes, Esq.
Lauchlan Mackinnon of Letterfearn also claims to be the heir-male of the family. Although
there are many gentlemen of the name still resident in Skye, there is no Mackinnon
proprietor of lands now either in that island or Mull.
The Mackinnons engaged in both rebellions in favour of the Stuarts. In 1715, 150 of them
fought with the Macdonalds of Sleat at the battle of Sheriffmuir, for which the chief was
forfeited, but received a pardon, 4th January 1727. In 1745, Mackinnon, though then old
and infirm, joined Prince Charles with a battalion of his clan. President Forbes estimated
their effective force at that period at 200 men. After the battle of Culloden, the price,
in his wanderings, took refuge in the country of the Mackinnons, when travelling in
disguise through Skye, and was concealed by the chief in a cave, to which Lady Mackinnon
brought him a refreshment of cold meat and wine. |
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Another account of the clan...
BADGE: Giuthas (pinus
sylvestris) pine.
SLOGAN: Cuimhnich has Alvin.
 A
POETICAL derivation of the name Mackinnon has been suggested from
Maclonmhuinn, the Son of Love, and the monkish writers of feudal centuries
Latinised it as Findanus. Several Finans or Finons are to be found in the
list of Culdee saints, and one of the Pictish kings, of the year 645 was
named Loceni MacFhinnon or Mac’innon. But universal tradition attributes
the name and the origin of the clan to Fingon, grandson of Gregor, son of
Alpin, King of Scots, beheaded by the Picts on Dundee Law in the year 834.
This tradition is supported by the fact that the clan badge is the same as
that of other clans claiming descent from Gregor and Alpin, and also by
two bonds of manrent executed in the seventeenth century. In one of these,
of the year 16th, Lauchlan Mackinnon of Strathardle and Finlay Macnab of
Bowain having met at Uir in Breadalbane, declared that "being come of
ane house, and being of ane surname and lineage," bound themselves to
support each other in all time coming. In the other, at Kilmory in 1671,
James MacGregor of that ilk and Lauchlan MacFingon of Strathardle,
"condescending that they are descended lawfullie frae twa brether of
auld descent," obliged themselves, their successors, kin, and friends
to support each other against all men, the King only excepted.
The tradition runs that the
original Fingon brought his following from the mainland to the island of
Mull, and that he also owned Mackinnon’s or Findanus’ Castle in Skye.
The early chiefs also owned lands in the island of Arran. Gribun, in Mull,
appears to have been their original seat, and their property in this
island was of considerable extent. They had lands as well in the island of
Tiree. Strathardle in Skye, which was afterwards to become their chief
seat, they acquired through a custom then very prevalent among the
Highland and Island chiefs. A Mackinnon heir had been sent to Skye to be
"fostered" or brought up in the house of Gillies, the owner of
that extensive property. Gillies had an only son and a nephew, and on one
occasion these two young men, while hunting on the island of Pabay,
quarrelled and came to blows. In the conflict both of them were slain.
Being then without heirs, Gillies, having become attached to young
Mackinnon, left him the whole of his estate. To this Mackinnon by
excambion added the islands of Pabay and Scalpa. Apparently at an early
date the clan was powerful enough to be a menace to the Macdougall Lords
of Lorn. According to Gregory, "The first authentic notice of this
ancient tribe is to be found in an indenture between the Lord of the Isles
and the Lord of Lorn. The latter stipulates, in surrendering the Island of
Mull and other lands to the Lord of the Isles, that the keeping of the
castle of Kerneburg, in the Treshnish Isles, is not to be given to any of
the race of Clan Finnon." Under the Lords of the Isles, the
Mackinnons were hereditary custodians of the standards of weights and
measures.
The first check which the
fortunes of the family received was brought about by an act of the
Mackinnon chief himself. On the death in 1380 of John, Lord of the Isles,
Mackinnon took arms in an endeavour to secure the succession for his
younger son, Ian Mor. In this attempt Mackinnon was joined by the Macleans
and Macleods, but their united forces proved unsuccessful against the
elder son, Donald, who vindicated his right to the Lordship of the Isles.
lain Mor, afterwards known as " the Tanister," was driven into
exile in Ireland, but was afterwards pardoned and founded the Clan lain
Mhor, or Clan Donald South, of Islay and Kintyre. Mackinnon was less
happy. As leader of the formidable insurrection he was put to death.
Meanwhile the Clan Maclean
had increased in power in the island of Mull, and almost inevitably came
into rivalry and collision with the Mackinnons. Lachlan Lubanach, first of
the Macleans of Duart, had become Steward to the Lord of the Isles, had
married his daughter Mary, and had received charters of Duart, Brolas, and
other lands, and apparently there was bad blood between him, his brother,
Hector Reaganach, and Mackinnon. The climax came on a day in the year
1400, when the Lord of the Isles, who had been hunting in Mull, set out to
return to Ardtornish Castle, his stronghold on the opposite shore of the
Sound of Mull. As Mackinnon was stepping into his galley to follow,
Lachlan and Hector Maclean fell upon him and slew him. They then disarmed
his men, and hastening after the Lord of the Isles, seized his galley and
forced him to grant them an indemnity for the deed.
Of the feud with the
Macleans which followed many incidents are related. On one occasion the
young Chief of the Mackinnons was forced to seek refuge in Ireland. There
the Earl of Antrim gave him forty young gentlemen to support him. The
party landed at Camus na fola, the Bloody Bay a couple of miles north-west
of Tobermory in Mull, and to discover the whereabouts of his enemies
Mackinnon paid a visit to an old woman of his clan who lived in a certain
lonely glen. He told her he bad forty men to carry out an attack. She
replied, " Do as I tell you, and you will have possession of your
lands by sunrise." Following her counsel he took to the woods with
his party, where each man cut and stripped a caber. Surrounding Ledaig
House, where Duart and Lochbuie lay asleep, they planted their cabers in
the ground, the Chief placing his before the door with his naked sword
hung on it. In the morning the astonished Macleans, realising who had been
their visitor, and that he could easily have taken their lives if he had
wished, sent for Mackinnon and restored his lands.
On another occasion the
Mackinnon chief, then a mere lad, was entrusted to the care of Maclean of
Brolas, who was his godfather, who took charge of his titles and charters.
By and by, hearing that Maclean had gone to Edinburgh to settle his
affairs, and had returned, Mackinnon went to see him. At Brolas, however,
he found at the door-side a burning stick, the sign that there was
sickness in the house and that no visitors were being admitted. On
returning next day he found that Maclean was dead, and when he asked the
new laird for his papers the latter said he knew nothing about them, but
was quite sure that, if his father had them it was because Mackinnon owed
him money, and that, if ever he found them he should keep papers and lands
together. The papers were never returned.
An appeal to arms was not
more fortunate. In a desperate battle between the two clans at Doire
Shuaig, the day was going for the Mackinnons when one of them, who had
married a Maclean, deserted with all his followers. Mackinnon fled to a
cavern - fastness at Gribun, but presently Maclean discovered it and
proceeded to smoke the place. Some of the Mackinnons, however, managed to
get a boat in time, rowed him to Staffa, and hid him in the great cavern
there which is still known from this fact as Mackinnon’s Cave, till he
could escape to Skye. In this way the Mackinnons lost their lands of
Gribun and Inchkenneth, as well as Mishnish, their later possession near
Tobermory.
In those stormy and
eventful centuries several of the race became Abbots of lona. The last of
them was John, who, with his father, Lachlan, raised the sculptured
monument known as Mackinnon’s Cross, over the graves of his family in
the Reilig Oran, and whose effigy is still to be seen on an altar tomb in
the chancel of the cathedral. He died in the year 1500.
Thenceforth the seat of the
Mackinnon chiefs was at Strathardle in Skye. The twenty-sixth of the line,
Sir Lachlan, was a man of much importance in the islands, and in 1628, the
year before his death, his estate was erected into a barony by Charles I.
A few years later, in 1639,
the Covenanting Government under Argyll considered it desirable to check
the pretensions of the Island chiefs. Accordingly in a court held at lona,
it was enacted that Mackinnon and others of his rank should sustain and
entertain no more than three gentlemen in their retinue. None must carry
hagbuts or pistols, and only the chiefs and their immediate households
were permitted to wear swords and armour. A chief was to keep no more than
one birlinn or galley of eighteen oars; no bards or seannachies were to be
retained, and gentlemen of Mackinnon’s rank were to use no more than one
tun of wine in a year.
In the Civil Wars of
Charles I., the Mackinnons were staunchly loyal. Joining the gallant
Marquess of Montrose in 1645, they played a brilliant part at the
desperate battles of Auldearn and Inverlochy, in the latter of which
Argyll’s force was cut to pieces with a loss of fifteen hundred men.
The chief of that time,
Lachlan Mor Mackinnon, had been brought up at Inveraray by Argyll, but had
married a daughter of Maclean of Duart. In 1649 he was induced by that
chief to join in an attack with two hundred followers on the lands of his
former guardian. The enterprise proved disastrous. Recognising the
assailants by the badge in their bonnets, the Campbells attacked
furiously, giving no quarter, and the Mackinnons were cut to pieces.
Two years later, the young
King, Charles II., having landed in Scotland, Mackinnon raised a battalion
from his lands in Skye, and marched to Worcester. There he is said to have
saved the King’s life and to have been knighted on the field in
consequence, but the honour was not confirmed at the Restoration.
In the Jacobite rising of
1715 the Mackinnons joined the Earl of Mar, and took part at the battle of
Sheriffmuir, and in 17454 they marched to Derby with Prince Charles
Edward, and helped to win the battle of Falkirk. Half of them fell at
Culloden. The other half on the same day completely broke up Lord Loudoun’s
force in Sutherlandshire.
In the romantic adventures
of the Prince which followed, Mackinnon bore an outstanding part. It was
on 2nd July that Charles took refuge with them in Skye. That night they
rowed him over to the mainland, and after many adventures handed him
safely to Angus Macdonald at Borrodale. Next day Mackinnon was taken
prisoner, and after a year’s confinement in Tilbury Fort, was tried for
his life. He had been attainted, and was excepted from the Act of
Indemnity passed in 1747, but was pardoned on account of his years and of
the fact that he had acted rather from a spirit of chivalry than of
rebellion. As he was leaving the court the Attorney-General asked him,
"If King George were in your power, as you have been in his, what
would you do?" To which Mackinnon replied, "I would do to him,
as he has this day done to me; I would send him back to his own
country."
As a result of these events
the Mackinnons had to part with Strathardle in 1765. Since then they have
been landless in the ancient country of their clan, and the last Chief of
the senior line died unmarried and in reduced circumstances in 1808. He
was the great-grandson of John, elder son of Lachlan Mor, who fought for
Charles II. at the battle of Worcester. On that event the chief ship
passed to the representative of Lachlan Mor’s second son Donald. At
Worcester this Donald was taken prisoner. On his release he went to
Antigua in the West Indies, where, by a common corruption he was called
Daniel, and it was his great-great-grandson, William Alexander Mackinnon,
who became thirty-third Chief in 1808. He sat in Parliament almost
uninterruptedly from 1819 till 1865. His representative, the present
Chief, who resides at Gollanfield near Inverness, is an enthusiast for all
things Highland. His wife is the elder daughter of the late Lord Hood of
Avalon and a niece of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Bart., of Duart; and of
his sons the elder at the beginning of the war of 1914 held a commission
in the 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders, and the second was a
sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
In the tale of members of
the clan who have distinguished themselves in the service of their country
in recent times, must be included Major-General Henry Mackinnon, who fell
leading his brigade at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812, and Colonel Daniel
Mackinnon who commanded the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo and held the
farm of Hougomont till he fell severely wounded. He afterwards wrote the History
of the Coldstream Guards. Others have been General George Henry
Mackinnon of the Grenadiers, who fought in the Kaffir War of 1846-7, and
became Chief Commissioner of British Kaifraria; Colonel Lionel Mackinnon
of the Coldstreams, killed at Inkerman; and Colonel William Alexander
Mackinnon, who distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny, while in
another field was Sir William Mackinnon, Bart., founder of the British
India Steam Navigation Company.
Sept of Clan MacKinnon:
Love, MacKinney, MacKinning, Mackinven, MacMorran. |
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