BADGE: Lus nam braoileag (vaccineum vitis idaea) Red whortleberry
SLOGAN: Loch Moidh !
PIBROCH: Cu'a I Mhic an Tosaich
Two chief authorities support different versions of the origin of this famous clan. Skene in his Highlanders of Scotland and in his later Celtic Scotland, founding on a manuscript of 1467, takes the clan to be a branch of the original Clan Chattan, descended from Ferchar fada, son of Fearadach, of the tribe of Lorne, King of Dalriada, who died in the year 697. The historian of the clan, on the other hand, Mr. A.M. Mackintosh, founding on the history of the family written about 1679 by Lachlan Mackintosh of Kinrara, brother of the eighteenth chief, favours the statement that the clan is descended from Shaw, second son of Duncan, third Earl of Fife, which Shaw is stated to have proceeded with King Malcolm IV to suppress a rebellion of the men of Moray in 1163, and, as a reward for his services, to have been made keeper of the Royal Castle of Inverness and possessor of the lands of Petty and Breachley, in the north-east corner of Inverness-shire, with the forest of Strathdearne on the upper Findhorn. These, in any case, are the districts found in occupation of the family in the fifteenth century, when authentic records become available. The early chiefs are said to have resided in Inverness Castle, and, possibly as a result, the connection of the family with that town has always been most friendly.
Shaw's youngest son, Duncan, was killed at Tordhean in 1190, in leading an attack upon a raiding party of Islesmen under Donald Baan, who had ravaged the country almost to the castle walls. Shaw, the first chief, died in 1179. His eldest son, Shaw, was appointed Toisach, or factor, for the Crown in his district, and died in 1210. His eldest son, Ferquhard, appeared in an agreement between the Chapter of Moray and Alexander de Stryvetine in 1234 as "Seneschalle de Badenach". His nephew and successor, Shaw, acquired the lands of Meikle Geddes and the lands and castle of Rait on the Nairn. He also obtained from the Bishop of Moray a lease of the lands of Rothicmurcus, which was afterwards converted into a feu in 1464. He married the daughter of the Thane of Cawdor, and while he lived at Rothiemurcus is said to have led the people of Badenoch in Alexander III's expedition against the Norwegians. There is a tradition that, having slain a man, he fled to the court of Angus Og of Islay, and as the result of a love affair with Mora, daughter of that chief, had to flee to Ireland. Subsequently, however, he returned, married Mora, and was reconciled to his father-in-law. In his time a certain Gillebride took service under Ferquhard, From him are descended the MacGillivrays of later days, who have always been strenuous supporters of the Mackintosh honour and power. In keeping with his stormy life, shortly after his marriage, Ferquhard was slain in an island brawl, and his two children, Angus and a daughter, were brought up by their uncle Alexander, their mother's eldest brother.
During the minority of Angus the family fortunes suffered from the aggressions of the Comyns. In 1230 Walter Comyn, son of the Justiciar of Scotland, had obtained the Lordship of Badenoch, and he and his descendants seem to have thought the presence of the Mackintoshes in the district a menace to their interests. During the boyhood of Angus they seized his lands of Rait and Meikle Geddes, as well as the castle of Inverness, all of which possessions remained alienated from Clan Mackintosh for something like a hundred years.
Angus took for his wife in 1291 Eva, only daughter of the chief of Clan Chattan, a race regarding whose origin there has been much discussion. According to tradition he received along with her the lands of Glenlui and Locharkaig in Lochaber, as well as the chiefship of Clan Chattan. According to another tradition, however, Eva had a cousin once removed, Kenneth, descended, like her, from Muireach, parson of Kingussie, from whom he and his descendants took the name of Macpherson or "Son of the Parson". It is through this Kenneth as heir-male that the Macpherson chiefs have claimed to be the chiefs of Clan Chattan.
Angus, sixth chief of the Mackintoshes, was a supporter of King Robert the Bruce. He is said to have been one of the chief leaders under Randolph, Earl of Moray, at the battle of Bannockburn, and as a reward to have received the lands of Benchar in Badenoch. Also, as a consequence of the fall of the Comyns, he is understood to have come again into possession of the lands of Rait and Meikle Geddes, as well as the keepership of the Castle of Inverness. From younger sons of Angus were descended the Mackintoshes or Shaws of Rothiemurcus, the Mackintoshes of Dalmunzie, and the Mackintoshes in Mar. He himself died in 1345.
His son William, the seventh chief, seems to have been almost immediately embroiled in a great feud with the Camerons, who were in actual occupation of the lands of Locharkaig. Mackintosh endeavoured to secure his possession of these old Clan Chattan lands by obtaining a charter from his relative John of Isla, afterwards Lord of the Isles, who had been made Lord of Lochaber by Edward Baliol in 1335, and afterwards by a charter from David II in 1359; but the Camerons continued to hold the lands, and all that Mackintosh ever really possessed of them was the grave in which he was buried in 1368, on the top of the island of Torchionan in Locharkaig, where it is said he had wistfully spent Christmas for several years. From a natural son of this chief were descended the Mackintoshes or MacCombies of Glenshee and Glenisla.
Lachlan, William's son by his first wife, Florence, daughter of the Thane of Cawdor, was the chief at the time of the clan's most strenuous conflicts with the Camerons. In 1370 or 1386, four hundred of the Camerons raided Badenoch. As they returned with their booty they were overtaken at Invernahaven by a superior body under the Mackintosh chief. A dispute, however, arose in the ranks of Clan Chattan, the Macphersons claiming the post of honour on the right wing, as representatives of the old Clan Chattan chiefs, while Davidson of Invernahaven claimed it as the oldest Cadet. Mackintosh decided in favour of Davidson; the Macphersons in consequence withdrew from the field, and as a result the Mackintoshes and Davidsons were all but annihilated. Tradition runs that in these straits Mackintosh sent a minstrel to the Macpherson camp, who in a song taunted the Macphersons with cowardice. At this, Macpherson called his men to arms, and, attacking the Carnerons, defeated and put them to flight.
Closely connected with this event appears to have been the famous clan battle before King Robert III on the North Inch at Perth in 1396. According to some authorities this battle was between Clan Davidson and Clan Macpherson, to settle the brawls brought about by their rival claims to precedency. The weight of evidence, however, appears to favour the belief that the battle was between Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron. The incident is well known, and is recorded in most of the Scottish histories of the following and later centuries. It has also been made famous as an outstanding episode in Sir Walter Scott's romance The Fair Maid of Perth. On a Monday morning near the end of September, thirty champions from each clan faced each other within barriers on the North Inch. Robert III was there with his queen and court, while round the barriers thronged a vast crowd of the common people from near and far. Before the battle began it was discovered that Clan Chattan was one man short, and it seemed as if the fight could not take place; but on the chief calling for a substitute, and offering a reward, there sprang into the lists a certain Gow Chrom, or bandy-legged smith of Perth, known as Hal o' the Wynd. The battle then began, and was fought with terrific fury till on one side only one man survived, who, seeing the day was lost, sprang into the Tay and escaped. On the victorious side there were eleven survivors, among whom Hal o' the Wynd was the only unwounded man. It is said he accompanied Clan Chattan back to the Highlands, and that his race is represented by the Gows or Smiths, who have been ranked as a sept of Clan Chattan in more recent times.
For a generation after this combat the feud between the Mackintoshes and the Camerons seems to have remained in abeyance. In 1430, however, it broke out again, and raged intermittently till well on in the seventeenth century.
Lachlan, the eighth chief, died in 1407. His wife was Agnes, daughter of Hugh Fraser of Lovat, and their son Ferquhard held the chiefship for only two years. He appears to have been slothful and unwarlike, and was induced to resign his birthright to his uncle Malcolm, reserving to himself only Kyllachy and Corrivory in Strathdearn, where his descendants remained for a couple of centuries.
Malcolm, the uncle who in this way succeeded as tenth chief, was a son of the seventh chief, William, by his second wife, daughter of Macleod of the Lewis. He was a short, thickset man, and from these characteristics was known as Malcolm Beg. Two years after his succession, Donald of the Isles, in prosecution of his claim to the Earldom of Ross, invaded the north of Scotland. Of the mainland chiefs who joined his army Mackintosh and Maclean were the most important, and at the great battle of Harlaw, north of Aberdeen, where the Highland army was met and defeated by the Earl of Mar and the chivalry of Angus and Mearns, both of these chiefs greatly distinguished themselves. Maclean fell the battle, as also did many of the Mackintoshes, including James, laird of Rothiemurcus, son of Shaw, who was leader of Clan Chattan in the lists at Perth; but the Mackintosh chief himself appears to have escaped, and there is a tradition that at a later day he conducted James I over the field of battle. There is also a tradition that, for yielding the honour of the right wing to the Maclean chief in the attack, Mackintosh was granted by Donald of the Isles certain rights in the lands of Glengarry.
It was in the time of this chief that the Mackintoshes finished their feud with the Comyns. During the lawless times under Murdoch, Duke of Albany, Alexander Comyn is said to have seized and hanged certain young men of the Mackintoshes on a hillock near the castle of Rail. Mackintosh replied by surprising and slaying a number of the Comyns in the castle of Nairn. Next the Comyns invaded the Mackintosh country, besieged the chief and his followers in their castle in Loch Moy and proceeded to raise the waters of the loch by means of a dam, in order to drown out the garrison. One of the latter, however, in the night-time managed to break the dam, when the waters rushed out, and swept away a large part of Comyn's besieging force encamped in the hollow below. Thus foiled, the Comyns planned a more crafty revenge. Pretending a desire for peace, they invited the chief men of the Mackintoshes to a feast at Rait Castle. The tradition is that the Comyn chief made each of his followers swear secrecy as to his design. It happened, however, that his own daughter had a Mackintosh lover, and she took the opportunity to tell the plot to a certain grey stone, when she knew her lover was waiting for her on the other side of it. As a result the Mackintoshes came to the feast, where each one found himself seated with a Comyn on his right hand. All went well till the moment for the murderous attack by the Comyns was all but reached, when Mackintosh suddenly took the initiative, and gave his own signal, whereupon each Mackintosh at the board drew his dirk and stabbed the Comyn next him to the heart. The Comyn chief, it is said, escaped from the table, and, guessing that the secret had been revealed by his daughter, rushed, weapon in hand, to her apartment. The girl sought escape by the window, but, as she hung from the sill, her father appeared above, and with a sweep of his sword severed her hands, whereupon she fell into the arms of her Mackintosh lover below. Whatever were the details of the final overthrow of the Comyns, the Mackintosh chief in 1442 established his right to the lands of which his family had so long been deprived, and secured a charter of them from Alexander de Seton, Lord of Gordon. The Mackintosh chief was also, as already mentioned, restored to his position as constable of the castle of Inverness by James I in 1428. He defended the castle in the following year against Alexander, Lord of the Isles, when the latter burned Inverness, and, when the king pursued and defeated the Island Lord in consequence in Lochaber, the issue is said to have been largely brought about by the Mackintoshes and Camerons taking part on the side of the king against their former ally.
In 1431 the tables were turned. The royal army under the Earls of Mar and Caithness was defeated at Inverlochy by Donald Balloch, a cousin of Alexander of the Isles, who forthwith proceeded to devastate the lands of Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron for their desertion of him. For his loyalty Mackintosh obtained from the king certain lands in Glen Roy and Glen Spean.
Though the Mackintoshes and the Camerons fought on the same side in this battle they were not really friends. There is a tradition that in the following year the Camerons made a raid upon Strathdearn, and that the Mackintoshes fought and all but exterminated a sept of them in a church on Palm Sunday.
Afterwards, when the Lord of the Isles was made Justiciar of the North of Scotland, he set the Mackintoshes against the Camerons, and though the latter were victorious in a conflict at Craigcailleach in 1441, when one of Mackintosh's sons was slain, in the end Donald Dhu, the Cameron chief, was forced to flee to Ireland and his lands were forfeited for a time.
Malcolm Beg lived to an extreme old age. In his time a number of septs came into the clan, including the MacQueens, Clan Andrish, and Clan Chlearich, while his second son Alan was the progenitor of the Kyllachy branch of the clan. One of the last events of his life was a brush with the Munroes. On returning from a raid in Perthshire, the latter were driving their booty through the Mackintosh country, when they were stopped by the demand of Malcolm, a grandson of the chief, that they should deliver up not only the usual share in name of toll, but the whole of their booty. Munro thereupon refused to pay anything, but at Clachnaharry, beyond the River Ness, he was overtaken, and a bloody battle took place in which young Mackintosh was slain, and Munro, tutor of Fowlis, was left for dead on the field.
Malcolm Beg's eldest son Duncan, the eleventh chief, who succeeded in 1464, was in favour with King James IV, and devoted himself largely to securing his family possessions by means of charters from the Crown and other superiors. But though Duncan, the chief, was a peace-lover, his son Ferquhard was not. He joined Alexander of Lochalsh, nephew of John of the Isles, in his attempt to regain the earldom of Ross, and in the course of the attempt stormed the castle of Inverness, obtaining possession by means of a "sow" and by sapping. After ravaging the Black Isle, they proceeded to the MacKenzies' country, where they were surprised by the chief, and utterly routed at the battle of Blair-na-Park, with the result that the Lord of the Isles was finally forfeited and Ferquhard Mackintosh imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle and in the castle of Dunbar till after the battle of Flodden.
After his father's death in 1496, Ferquhard in prison had his affairs managed by his cousin William, who ably defended the Mackintosh lands against raids of the Carnerons, Macgregors, and Macdonalds of Glencoe, and who was finally infefted in the Mackintosh lands and chiefship, and succeeded to them on the death of Ferquhard without male issue. Meanwhile, during his long imprisonment, Ferquhard proved his ability in another way by compiling a history of his clan. When he was set free after Flodden, in 1513, he was received on the haugh at Inverness by eighteen hundred of his clansmen, but he died in the following year.
The marriage of William, who succeeded as thirteenth chief in 1514, was characteristic of the time. In 1475 the Earl of Huntly had granted his father the marriage of the sisters MacNaughton or MacNiven, co-heiresses of Dunachton, on condition of receiving a bond of manrent. Lachlan's son William was accordingly married to the elder heiress, with the result that for the next hundred years the Mackintosh chiefs were styled "of Dunachton".
William, however, had no children, and his brother Lachlan was unmarried. Accordingly, his cousin, John Ruaidh, who was next heir, proceeded to hasten his fortune. Learning that the chief lay sick at Inverness, he entered the house and murdered him in May 1515. The assassins, however, were pursued through the north by another cousin, Dougal Mhor, and his son Ferquhard, and finally overtaken and executed in Glenness.
William's brother, Lachlan, who succeeded as fourteenth chief, had a similar fate. First Dougal Mhor set up a claim to the chiefship, having seized the castle of Inverness, but he was slain with his two sons when the castle was recaptured for the king. Next a natural son of the chief's elder half-brother took to evil courses, and murdered the chief while hunting on the Findhorn.
Lachlan Mackintosh had been married to the daughter of Sir Alexander Gordon of Lochinvar and Jean, sister of the first Earl of Cassillis, who was mother also of James IV's natural son, the Earl of Moray; and on the death of Lochinvar at Flodden, the son of Mackintosh quartered the Lochinvar arms with his own. This son, William, was an infant when he succeeded to the chiefship, and during his minority Hector, a natural son of Ferquhard, twelfth chief, by a Dunbar lady, was chosen as captain by the clan. Fearful for the safety of the infant chief, his next-of-kin, the Earl of Moray removed him with his mother to his own house, where he caused the latter to marry Ogilvie of Cardell. In reply, Hector Mackintosh raided the lands belonging to Moray and the Ogilvies, and slew twenty-four of the latter, as a result of which his brother William and others were hanged by Moray at Forres, and he himself, having fled to the south, was assassinated by a monk of St.Andrews.
It was now Queen Mary's time, and in the person of William, the young fifteenth chief, the most famous tragedy in the history of the Mackintosh family was to take place. The young chief appears to have been well educated, and distinguished by his spirit and enlightenment. On the death of his early friend the Earl of Moray, his most powerful neighbour became George, fourth Earl of Huntly. This nobleman at first acted as his very good friend, and on the other hand was supported by Mackintosh in some of his chief undertakings, notably the expedition to replace Ranald Gallda in possession of his father's chiefship in Moidart, which had been seized by the notorious John Muydertach - the expedition which led to the battle of Kinlochlochie, in which the Macdonalds and the Frasers all but exterminated each other. But on Huntly becoming feudal superior of most of the Clan Chattan lands, trouble appears to have sprung up between him and his vassal. First, the earl deprived Mackintosh of his office of Deputy Lieutenant, as a consequence of the latter's refusal to sign a bond of manrent. Then Lachlan Mackintosh, son of the murderer of the chief's father, though the chief had bestowed many favours upon him, brought an accusation against his chief of conspiring to take Huntly's life. Upon this excuse the earl seized Mackintosh, carried him to Aberdeen, and in a court packed with his own supporters, had him condemned to death. The sentence would have been carried out on the spot had not Thomas Menzies, the Provost, called out his burghers to prevent the deed. Huntly, however, carried his prisoner to his stronghold of Strathbogie, where he left him to his lady to deal with, while he himself proceeded to France with the Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise. Mackintosh was accordingly beheaded on 23rd August 1550.
Sir Walter Scott, following tradition, invests the incident with his usual romance. Mackintosh, he says, had excited the Earl's wrath by burning his castle of Auchendoun, and afterwards, finding his clan in danger of extermination through the Earl's resentment, devised a plan of obtaining forgiveness. Choosing a time when the Earl was absent, he betook himself to the Castle of Strathbogie, and, asking for Lady Huntly, begged her to procure him forgiveness. The lady, Scott proceeds, declared that Mackintosh had offended Huntly so deeply that the latter had sworn to make no pause till he had brought the chief's head to the block. Mackintosh replied that he would stoop even to this to save his father's house, and, as the interview took place in the kitchen of the castle, he knelt down before the block on which the animals for the use of the garrison were broken up, and laid his neck upon it. He no doubt thought to move the lady's pity by this show of submission, but instead she made a sign to the cook, who stepped forward with his cleaver, and at one stroke severed Mackintosh's head from his body.
The historian of Clan Mackintosh points out the flaw in this story, the burning of Auchendoun not having taken place till forty-three years later, at the hands of William, a grandson of the same name.
It is interesting to note how Mackintosh was indirectly avenged. Four years later Huntly was sent by the Queen Regent to repress John Muydertach and Clan Ranald. Chief among the Highland vassals upon whom he must rely were Clan Chattan; but, knowing the feelings cherished by the clansmen against himself, he thought better of the enterprise and abandoned it; upon which the Queen, greatly displeased, deprived him of the Earldom of Moray and Lordship, of Abernethy, and condemned him to five years' banishment, which was ultimately commuted to a fine of £5,000.
But Huntly was to be still further punished for his deed. Lachlan Mor, the son of the murdered chief, finished his education in Edinburgh, and was a member of Queen Mary's suite, when in 1562 she proceeded to the north to make her half-brother Earl of Moray. This proceeding was highly resented by Huntly, who regarded the earldom as his own, and who called out his vassals to resist the infeftment. When Mary reached Inverness Castle she was refused admittance by Alexander Gordon, who held it for Huntly. At the same time she learned that the Gordons were approaching in force. Here was the opportunity of the young Mackintosh chief. Raising his vassals in the neighbourhood, he undertook the Queen's protection till other forces arrived, when the castle was taken and its captain hanged over the wall. Mackintosh also managed to intercept his clansmen in Badenoch on their way to join the army of Huntly, their feudal superior, and, deprived of their help, the Gordons retired upon Deeside. Here, on 28th October, Huntly was defeated by Mary's forces at the battle of Corrichie, and died of an apoplectic stroke. It is believed that the young chief, Lachlan Mor, afterwards fought on Mary's behalf at Langside.
In the faction troubles of the north in the following years Mackintosh played a conspicuous part, and at the battle of Glenlivet in 1594, commanding, along with Maclean, the Earl of Argyll's right wing, he almost succeeded in cutting off the Earl of Errol and his men.
Lachlan Mor died in 1606. Of his seven sons the eldest, Angus, married Jean, daughter of the fifth Earl of Argyll, and their son, another Lachlan, becoming a gentleman of the bedchamber to the prince, afterwards Charles I, received the honour of knighthood in 1617, and is said to have been promised the earldom of Orkney, but died suddenly in his twenty-ninth year. His second brother, William, was ancestor of the Borlum branch of the clan, and his second son, Lachlan of Kinrara, was writer of the Manuscript account of the family upon which the earlier part of the modern history of the clan is based.
In the civil wars of Charles I the Mackintoshes took no part as a clan, on account of the feeble health of William, the eighteenth chief, though large numbers of Mackintoshes, Macphersons, and Farquharsons fought for the king under Huntly and Montrose, while the chief himself was made Lieutenant of Moray and Governor of Inverlochy Castle in the king's interest.
At the same time, the Macphersons, who, through Huntly's influence, had been gradually, during the last fifty years, separating themselves from the Mackintoshes, first took an independent position in the wars of Montrose under their chief Ewen, then tenant of Cluny, and proceeded to assert themselves as an independent clan. A few years later, in the autumn of 1665, the dispute with the Camerons over the lands of Glenlui and Locharkaig, which had lasted for three hundred and fifty years, was brought to an end by an arrangement in which Lochiel agreed to pay 72,500 merks. Still later, in 1688, the old trouble with the Macdonalds of Keppoch, who had persisted in occupying Mackintosh's lands in Glen Roy and Glen Spean without paying rent, was brought to head in the last clan battle fought in Scotland. This was the encounter at Mulroy, in which the Mackintoshes were defeated, and the chief himself taken prisoner.
Lachlan Mackintosh, the twentieth chief, was head of the clan at the time of the Earl of Mar's rising in 1715, and with his clan was among the first to take arms for the Jacobite cause. With his kinsman of Borlum he marched into Inverness, proclaimed King James VIII, and seized the public money and arms, and he afterwards joined Mar at Perth with seven hundred of his clan. The most effective part of the campaign was that carried out by six regiments which crossed the Forth and made their way into England under Mackintosh of Borlum as Brigadier. And when the end came at Preston, on the same day as the defeat at Sheriffmuir, the Mackintosh chief was among those forced to surrender. He gave up his sword, it is said, to an officer named Graham, with the stipulation that if he escaped with his life it should be returned to him. In the upshot he was pardoned, but the holder of the sword forgot to give it back. A number of years later the officer was appointed to a command at Fort Augustus, when the sword was demanded by the successor of its previous owner, who declared that if it were not given up he would fight for it. The weapon however, was then handed back without demur. This sword is a beautiful piece with a silver hilt, which was originally given to the Mackintosh chief by Viscount Dundee. It is still preserved at Moy Hall, and is laid on the coffin of the chief when he goes to his burial. For his part in Mar's rising Lachlan Mackintosh received patent of nobility from the court at St.Germains.
Angus, the twenty-second chief, was head of the clan when Prince Charles Edward raised his standard in 1745 In the previous year he had been appointed to command a company of the newly-raised Black Watch, and his wife, the energetic Anne, traversing the country, it is said, in male attire, had by her sole exertions in a very short time raised the necessary hundred men, all but three. She was a daughter of Farquharson of Invercald and was only twenty years of age. Though hard pressed, Mackintosh kept his military oath. Lady Mackintosh, however, raised two battalions of the clan, and it was these battalions, led by young MacGillivray of Dunmaglass, who covered themselves with glory in the final battle at Culloden. There, charging with sword and target, they cut to pieces two companies of Burrel's regiment and lost their gallant leader, with several other officers and a great number of men.
A few weeks before the battle the Prince was sleeping at Moy Hall, when word was brought that Lord Loudoun was bringing a force from Inverness to secure him. Like an able general, Lady Mackintosh sent out the smith of Moy, with four other men, to watch the road from Inverness. When Lord Loudoun's force appeared, these men began firing their muskets, rushing about, and shouting orders to imaginary Macdonalds and Camerons, with the result that the attacking force thought it had fallen into an ambush, and, turning about, made at express speed for Inverness. The incident was remembered as the Rout of Moy. A few days afterwards Charles himself entered Inverness, where, till Culloden was fought, he stayed in the house of the Dowager Lady Mackintosh.
The battle of Culloden may be said to have ended the old clan system in Scotland. The line of the Mackintosh chiefs, however, has come down to the present day. AEneas, the twenty-third, was made a baronet by King George III. Before his death in 1820 he built the chief's modern seat of Moy Hall, entailed the family estates on the heir-male of the house, and wrote an account of the history of the clan.
The tradition known as the Curse of Moy, which was made the subject of a poem by Mr. Morrit of Rokeby, included in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, refers particularly to this period, when from 1731 till 1833 no chief of Mackintosh was succeeded by a son. The story is of a maiden, daughter of a Grant of Urquhart, who rejected the suit of a Mackintosh chief. The latter seized her, her father, and her lover, Grant of Alva, and imprisoned them in the castle in Loch Moy. By her tears she prevailed upon Mackintosh to allow one of his prisoners to escape, out when, at per father's entreaty, she named her lover, Mackintosh, enraged, had them both slain and placed before her. In consequence she became mad, wandered for years through Badenoch, and left a curse of childlessness upon the Mackintosh chiefs. The drawbacks to the story are that Moy was not the seat of the Mackintosh chiefs in early times, and that there were no Grants of Urquhart.
Alfred Donald, the twenty-eighth and present chief, is one of the best known and best liked heads of the Highland clans, one of the best of Highland landlords, and one of the most public-spirited men in the country. At his beautiful seat of Moy Hall he frequently entertained the late King Edward, and his grouse moors are the best managed and most famous in Scotland. His only son, Angus Alexander, was among the first to go to the Front in the great war of 1914, where he was severely wounded in one of the earlier engagements. He was afterwards secretary to the Duke of Devonshire when Governor-General of Canada, and married one of the Duke's daughters, but died in the following year. The Mackintosh is one of the most enthusiastic upholders of Highland traditions, and, in view of his own family's most romantic story, it will he admitted that he has the best of all reasons for his enthusiasm.
SEPTS OF CLAN MACKINTOSH
| Adamson | Ayson | Clark | Clarkson | Clerk | Combie | Crerar | Dallas |
| Doles | Elder | Esson | Glen | Glennie | Hardy | MacAndrew | MacAy |
| MacCardney | MacChlery | MacChlerich | MacCombe | MacCombie | MaComie | M'Conchy | MacFall |
| Macglashan | Machardy | MacHay | Mackeggie | M'Killican | MacOmie | MacNiven | MacPhail |
| Macritchie | MacThomas | Macvail | Niven | Noble | Paul | Ritchie | Shaw |
| Tarrill | Toshach | Tosh |