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Another account of the Clan
BADGE: Labhrail, or Buaidh craobh (laureola)
laurel.
SLOGAN: Craig Tuirci
 IT
is a melancholy fact that many of the clans of the Scottish Highlands are
at the present day without a chief. Considering that the feudal system was
substituted for the patriarchal so many centuries ago, it is perhaps a
marvel, on the other hand, that so many clans have retained a record of
the descent of their patriarchal heads to the present day; but undoubtedly
interest is added to the story of a tribe when that story can be traced
through a succession of leaders who have been the recognised main stem of
their race from an early century.
Of recognised chiefs of the
clan MacLaurin there have been no more than faint traces within modern
times, and the attempt of the Scottish judge, John MacLaurin, Lord
Dreghorn, in 1781, to establish his claim to the chiefship, can be
regarded as little more than a verification of the mystery surrounding the
disappearance of the chiefship a couple of hundred years before. The last
record of the existence of these chiefs appears to be in the rolls of the
clans drawn up in 1587 and 1594 for James VI., when that monarch hit upon
the excellent plan of making the Highland chiefs responsible for the good
behaviour of the members of their tribes. But the clan MacLaurin,
nevertheless, claimed a highly interesting origin, and achieved a record
of doughty deeds in its time, which was strenuous and heroic enough.
Romantic legend has
associated the origin of the clan with the romance of a mermaid who
appears in the armorial bearings assigned by the Lion Court to Lord
Dreghorn when he claimed the Chiefship. Another more plausible derivation
is that from Loarn, one of the three sons of Erc, who crossed from Ireland
in 503, and founded the infant Kingdom of the Scots. From these settlers
the district about Loch Awe got its name of Earrha Gaidheal, or Argyll,
the "Land of the Gael," and from Loarn or Lorn, the youngest of
the three brothers, the district of Lorne immediately to the westward is
said to have taken its name. The name Loarn or Laurin, in the first
instance, is understood to represent Laurence, the Christian martyr who is
believed to have suffered under the Emperor Valerian in 261 A.D. Whether
or not the chiefs MacLaurin were actually descended from the early son of
Erc, families of the name appear to have been settled at an early date in
the island of Tiree and in the upper fastnesses of western Perthshire,
about the Braes of Balquhidder and the foot of Loch Voil. Tradition
declares that three brothers from Argyllshire came eastward and settled in
these lands in Balquhidder, named respectively, from west to east, the
Bruach, Auchleskine, and the Stank. The descendants of these three
brothers had their burial-places divided off in the little kirkyard of
Balquhidder, in agreement with this tradition. While the chiefs of the
clan appear to have had their seat in Tiree, and it was to them that Lord
Dreghorn made his claim of descent, the history of the race appears mostly
to have been made by the families of the name settled in Balquhidder. In
keeping with this fact Tiree long ago passed into possession of the great
house of Argyll, though down to a comparatively recent date there were
landowners of the name of MacLaurin at Craiguie and Invernentie on the
shores of Loch Voil.
In Balquhidder the
MacLaurins were followers in early times of the great Celtic Earls of
Strathearn, and by some authorities they have been taken to be cadets of
that ancient house, settled in the district possibly as early as the days
of Kenneth MacAlpine. At the great battle of the Standard, fought by David
I. in 1138, it is recorded by Lord Hailes in his well-known Annals that
Malise, Earl of Strathearn, was the leader of the Lavernani. And a century
and a half later, in 1296, when the notables of Scotland, in token of
submission to Edward I. of England, were compelled to sign the Ragman
Roll, three of the signatories, Maurice of Tiree, Conan of Balquhidder,
and Laurin of Ardveche in Strathearn, have been assigned as cadets of the
Earl’s house.
From an early period the
MacLaurins figured in the battles of their country. Whatever were the
undertakings extorted by Edward I., it is recorded in a later document
that the clan fought by the side of Bruce at Bannockburn. They were also
among the followers of the luckless James III., when that monarch fought
and fell at Sauchieburn seventy-five years later. Three-quarters of a
century later still, through a romantic episode, they became mixed up with
one of the great family dramas of the West Highlands, which, drawing down
upon them the animosity of the ambitious house of Argyll, may have done
not a little to darken the later fortunes of the clan. About the middle of
the fifteenth century, John, third and last of the Stewart Lords of Lorne,
as a result of a love affair with a lady of the MacLaurins of Balquhidder,
became father of a natural son, Dugal. He had at the same time two
legitimate daughters, the eldest of whom, Isobel, was married to Colin,
Lord Campbell, first Earl of Argyll, while the younger became the wife of
the Earl’s uncle, Campbell of Glenurchy. On the death of his father in
1469, Dugal Stewart claimed the Lordship of Lorne. Against him he had the
powerful forces of the Campbells. Nevertheless he gathered his friends,
among whom were his mother’s relatives, the MacLaurins of Balquhidder.
The two forces met at the foot of Bendoran in Glen Urchy, when a bloody
battle ensued. In the end the Stewarts were overcome, and among the dead
on their side, it is recorded, were 130 of the MacLaurins. As a result
Dugal Stewart had to content himself with only a part of his father’s
possessions, namely Appin; and he became ancestor of that well-known
house, the Stewarts of Appin.
Stewart, however, did not
forget the MacLaurins, among whom he had been brought up, and who had
served him so well in his great attempt. In 1497 they made a sudden appeal
to him for help. According to the custom of the time the MacLaurins had
made a foray on the lands of the MacDonalds in Lochaber. On their way
home, driving a great spoil of cattle, they were overtaken in Glen Urchy
by the wrathful MacDonalds, and the spoil recaptured. Thereupon the
MacLaurins appealed to Stewart of Appin, who instantly raised his men and
joined them. The united forces came up with the MacDonalds in the Black
Mount, near the head of Glencoe, where a fierce struggle at once began.
Many were slain on both sides, and the dead included the two chiefs,
MacDonald of Keppoch and Stewart of Appin.
The MacLaurins, however,
had enemies nearer home— the MacGregors on one side and the Buchanans of
Leny on the other. A story well remembered in Balquhidder, and told with
many circumstantial details by the inhabitants of the district at the
present day, is that of their great conflict with the Buchanans. Local
tradition assigns the incident to the twelfth or thirteenth century, but
the Buchanans were not then in strength at Leny, and it seems much more
probable that the event occurred sometime in the days of James V.
According to tradition the episode began at a fair at Kilmahog, at the
foot of the Pass of Leny. Among those who attended the fair was a certain
" natural " or " innocents" who was one of the
MacLaurins of Balquhidder. As this wight strutted along he was met by one
of the Buchanans, who, by way of jest, slapped his face with the tail of a
salmon he was carrying, and knocked off his bonnet. In the way of a
weakling the MacLaurin innocent dared his assailant to do this again at
the fair at Balquhidder. The natural then went home, and promptly forgot
all about the incident. On the day of the fair at Balquhidder, however,
when the MacLaurins were busy buying, selling, and enjoying themselves,
word was suddenly brought that a considerable body of the Buchanans were
marching up through Strathyre, and were already no farther away than the
Clachan of Ruskachan. Then the idiot suddenly remembered what had happened
to him at Kilmahog, and the challenge he had given. There was no time to
lose; but the fiery cross was at once sent round the MacLaurin country,
and the clan rushed to arms. The MacLaurins had not all come in by the
time the Buchanans arrived on the scene, but those who were present,
nothing daunted, began the attack. At first the Buchanans carried
everything before them, and drove the MacLaurins for a mile, to the place
where the manse now stands. There one of the MacLaurins saw his son cut
down, and, being suddenly seized with battle madness, turned, shouted the
slogan of the clan, " Craig Tuirc," and, whirling his claymore,
rushed furiously at the enemy. The clansmen followed him, and before this
new furious attack the Buchanans went down like corn. Only two escaped, by
swimming the river Balvaig, but even these were followed, one being cut
down at Gartnafuaran and the other at the spot since known from the
circumstance as Sron Lainie. The whole episode is typical of the ways of
the Highlands at that time.
In their encounter with the
MacGregors, their enemies on the other side, the MacLaurins were not so
fortunate. It was in 1558 that the event occurred. Mention of it appears
in the indictment of the MacGregors for the slaughter of the Colquhouns at
Glenfruin in 1602, and an account of it is to be read on a tombstone in
Balquhidder kirkyard at the present day. The MacGregors, it appears, who
by this time had become the Ishmaels of the West Highlands, made a sudden
and unprovoked descent on Balquhidder, and murdered and burned no fewer
than eighteen householders of the clan MacLaurin with their wives and
families. The attack seems to have been a disabling one, for the
MacGregors remained in possession of the farms of their slaughtered
victims, and from that time appear to have been dominant in the district.
It was at any rate in the
little kirk of Balquhidder that, towards the end of the century, the
dreadful ceremony. took place which has since been known as Clan Alpine’s
vow. The story of this is told by Sir Walter Scott in the preface to his Legend
of Montrose, and, as it belongs rather to the story of the MacGregors,
than to that of the MacLaurins, it need not be repeated here. It was one
of the chief acts, however, which brought Nemesis upon the Clan MacGregor,
and in view of the fact it may seem strange to find a MacGregor at all in
possession of lands in Balquhidder at the present day. These lands,
however, some of them the possession of the MacLaurins of early times,
were purchased by the Chief of the MacGregors from the Commissioners of
Forfeited Estates in 1798.
Meantime the MacLaurins had
not failed to play a warlike part in the greater struggles of the nation.
The clan fought for James the Fourth at Flodden, and for the infant Queen
Mary at Pinkie, and when prince Charles Edward raised his standard at
Glenfinnan in the autumn of 1745, considerable numbers of the clan rallied
to his cause under the banner of their distant kinsman, Stewart of Appin.
Under that banner during the campaign thirteen MacLaurins were killed and
fourteen wounded. The story of one of the clan, MacLaurin of Wester
Invernentie, who was taken prisoner after Culloden, afforded the subject
for the episode of "Pate in Peril " which appears in Sir Walter
Scott’s novel, Redgauntlet. This young man was being marched
south, like so many others, to take his trial at Carlisle. As the party
made its way through the defiles of the Lowthers above Moffat, the
prisoner, who had formerly driven his cattle southward to the English
market by the same route, and knew the spot, where the path passed along
the edge of the curious hollow now known as the Devil’s Beef Tub, asked
to be allowed to step aside for a moment, when, seizing the opportunity,
he disappeared over the edge of the abyss. Hiding himself up to the neck
in a bog, with a turf on his head, he eluded the search of his pursuers
till nightfall, then, returning to Balquhidder, lived disguised as a woman
till the Act of Indemnity set him free to show himself again.
Among the most famous personages of the
name have been two sons of an Argyllshire minister, John and Cohn
MacLaurin. The former, born in 1693, was a famous preacher and
controversialist, a leader of the Intrusionists in the Church of Scotland,
and author of Sermons and Essays, published in 1755. His brother
Colin, five years younger, is regarded as "the one mathematician of
first rank trained in Great Britain in the eighteenth century." He
was Professor of Mathematics successively at Aberdeen and Edinburgh. In
1745, when Prince Charles Edward was marching on the Scottish Capital, he
organised the defence of the city, and in consequence, being forced
presently to flee, be endured such hardship that he died in the following
June. It was his son John, an advocate and senator of the College of
Justice, with the title of Lord Dreghorn, who made a claim to the
Chiefship of the clan in 1781. Another of the name, though spelling it
differently, was Archibald MacLaren, soldier and dramatist. Entering the
army in 1755, he served in the American war. On his return to Scotland he
joined a troupe of strolling players, and was author of a number of
dramatic pieces and an account of the Irish Rebellion. Ewen MacLaurin,
again, a native of Argyll, on the outbreak of the first American war,
raised at his own expense the force known as the South Carolina Loyalists.
There was also Colonel James MacLaren, C.B., son of the "Baron
MacLaurin," and a distinguished Indian soldier, who played a
distinguished part at the head of the 16th Bengal Infantry at the battle
of Sobraon. And it was Charles MacLaren who established the Scotsman newspaper
in 1817, edited it from 1820 till 1845, and, besides editing the 6th
edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica in 1823, published
several geological works.
From first to last it is a sufficiently
varied record, this of the clan MacLaurin, from the days of Loarn son of
Erc to the present hour, and it was one of the regrets of those interested
in "old unhappy far-off things" when, a few years ago, the
Corporation of Glasgow proposed to annex Loch Voil as a reservoir, that
the undertaking would entail the disappearance of many spots associated
with the tragic and romantic memories of the clan.
Septs of Clan MacLaurin: MacFater, MacFeat,
MacPatrick, MacPhater, Paterson, MacGrory, MacRory.
Another account of the clan...
The history
of the origins of the Clan MacLaren remains speculative although it is generally agreed
that the homeland of the MacLarens was the Braes of Balquhidder, the district round Loch
Voil. There appears in fact to be two quite distinct races of this name; the MacLarens of
Perthshire and the MacLaurins who were alleged at one time to have owned Tiree. In the
Ragman Roll of 1296 three MacLarens were recorded swearing fealty to Edward I, all said to
be cadets of the Earls of Strathearn. When the Earldom of Strathearn was seized by the
crown in 1370, the MacLarens were reduced to tenants, they were loyal to the crown and
fought for James III at Sauchieburn in 1488, James IV at Flodden, 1513, and Queen Mary at
Pinkie in 1547. They were also engaged in frequent feuds with their neighbours the
MacGregors who in 1558 slaughtered no fewer than eighteen entire MacLaren families and
seized their lands. However, in 1587 and 1594 they are still recorded as having a chief of
their own although later appear as followers the Stewarts of Appin or the Murrays of
Atholl. Dugal, progenitor of the Stewarts of Appin was the son of one of of the Stewart
Lords of Lorne and a daughter of the MacLaren of Ardveche. In 1745 the clan were
"out" under Appin and suffered severely, MacLaren of Invernenty who was taken
prisoner made a daring escape and is portrayed in Sir Walter Scott's novel
"Redgauntlet". In 1797 John MacLaren of Dreghorn was raised to the bench as Lord
Dreghorn having proved his claim to chiefship in 1781 through his descent from the minor
family, the MacLarens of Tiree who had long held the island. |
