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Clan MacDougall.net
Clan MacDougall Alternative History
PART TWO
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| Clan MacDougall: Piper |
The last MacDougal Lord of Lorne was Ewen. He left two heiresses, who became the wives of John Stewart of Invermeath, now Invermay, near Perth, and his brother Robert. Those Stewarts were descendants of Sir John Stewart of Bonkyl, who fell at the battle of Falkirk, and was a son of the High Steward of that time. Robert Stewart, the younger of the two, made a bargain with his brother John by which John obtained the whole Lordship of Lorne while Robert secured the entire family patrimony of Invermeath. From John Stewart and his MacDougal wife, accordingly descended all the Stewart Lords of Lorne, the Stewart Earls of Athol, and the Stewarts of Appin.
The only part of the MacDougal Lordship of Lorne which did not pass to the Stewarts was Dunolly Castle, with its dependent lands, which belonged to the MacDougals of Dunolly, the next cadet branch, descended from Allan, son of John, brother of Ewen, last of the elder line, already mentioned; and upon these MacDougals of Dunolly the chiefship of the clan devolved.
The MacDougals continued to hold these decreased possessions in more or less security till the time of the Civil Wars in 1645. Meanwhile the Campbells, whose first fortunes had been founded upon the downfall of the earlier house, had continued to grow in power steadily from century to century. At length, in 1645, the Campbell chief, now Marquess of Argyll, found himself at the head of the Government as the representative of the party of the Covenant in Scotland. For a few brilliant months his Royalist rival, the Marquess of Montrose, by a rapid succession of victories for the cause of Charles I., threatened to shake his power, but the battle of Philiphaugh practically ended his career and quenched the hopes of the Royalists in Scotland. Then Argyll, finding himself supreme, proceeded to turn the opportunity to account by destroying the last relics of greatness possessed by the families his own had supplanted. The army of the Covenant was sent first to destroy the MacDonald stronghold of Dunavertie in Kintyre, where three hundred of the garrison were slain. The Lamonts of Cowal were attacked, carried to Dunoon, and butchered bloodily to the number of some two hundred and thirty. And General Leslie was sent to attack and destroy the remaining MacDougal strongholds of Gylen on the Island of Kerrera, and of Dunolly on the northern horn of Oban Bay. This last commission was duly carried out, the castles were destroyed never to be restored, and the Brooch of Lorne, last sign of former MacDougal greatness, mysteriously disappeared.
The MacDougals suffered again in 1715, when, as Sir Walter Scott puts it in a note to The Lord of the Isles, "their representative incurred the penalty of forfeiture for his accession to the insurrection of that period, thus losing the remains of his inheritance to replace upon the throne the descendants of those princes whose accession his ancestors had opposed at the expense of their feudal grandeur." At that time the strength of the clan is said to have been five hundred fighting men, though, according to President Forbes’ report, it was reduced thirty years later to two hundred.
The chapter of the family history which followed is as romantic as anything in the memory of the Highlands. The head of the family fled to France, and his son would have been destitute had it not been for a member of the clan, at that time keeper of a public house in Dunbarton, who took the young chief into his house, and maintained and educated him till his sixteenth year. The lad proved clever and intelligent, and turned whatever advantages be possessed to good account. When the Jacobite rising of 1745 was afoot it was expected that Prince Charles Edward would land near Oban. Instead, as is well known, he disembarked at Lochnanuagh in Arisaig. Word of his landing was sent to MacDougal by Stewart of Appin, and MacDougal ordered his brother to have the clan ready to rise while he himself went to consult the Chamberlain of the Earl of Breadalbane. This individual threw cold water on the enterprise, pointing out that Charles had not kept his promise either as to his place of landing or in the matter of bringing forces to support his cause. MacDougal then proceeded to interview the Duke of Argyll at Rosneath. While awaiting the interview there he saw a horseman arrive at full gallop. Shortly afterwards the Duke, entering the apartment, map in hand, asked MacDougal to point out Lochnanuagh. MacDougal quickly perceived that the secret was known, and seized the opportunity of being the first to give details. By the Duke’s advice he took no part in the rising, and his reward was the restoration of the estate of Dunolly, which his father had lost.
Such was the story told by a relation of the family at Dunstaffnage to Sir Walter Scott when he visited the neighbourhood in 1814.
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