The Chief of the Montgomerys had become Bailie of Cunninghame in 1366.  During the fifteenth century both the chiefs of Clan Cunningham and Clan Montgomery became Lords of Parliament.  The Chief of Montgomery was made Lord Montgomery in 1444 and the Chief of Cunningham, ‘Lord Kilmaurs’ in 1450.  The Cunningham Chief was then further promoted to ‘Earl of Glencairn’ in 1503 and the Montgomery Chief  ’The Earl of Eglington’ in 1507.  Competition between the two families at this point was there, but very low key.

The feud began mostly over the Bailieship of the land of Cunninghame in 1425.  The Baillieship of Cunninghame had long been in the hands of the Cunninghams but in 1448 the Crown (King James II)  took it away from the Cunninghams and moved it into the hands of their neighbours, the Montgomerys.

Sir Alexander Montgomery was made Bailie (Chief Magistrate) of the King’s Barony (District) of Cunninghame, which had been held by Sir Robert Cunningham, who was married to Alexander’s sister.   Sir Robert believed that his position as Bailie was to be permanently held by the Cunninghams and not part of his wife’s dowry, as claimed by his brother-in-law.   So both the previous owner and the new owner were within the same family – this must have added fire to the feud.

Over what was a relatively minor matter their feud was to continue over centuries, despite legal judgements and government action.  It is arguably one of the longest and bloodiest feuds in Clan history.  Lasting from the mid 15th Century to the mid 17th Century.

Both the Montgomerys and the Cunninghams were powerful clans in the northern lowlands of Ayrshire, they were neighbours and the landscape they lived in had a lot to do with their feud and keeping it going.  The district is cut off by hills and water, to the south is the River Irvine, to the west the River Clyde, the north are the Kilbirnie Hills which form a natural barrier and in the east the hills that divide the district from Lanarkshire.

From 1425 onwards the feud between these Clans saw murders, assassinations, mounted troops raiding civilians killing many of them, the sacking of castles, burning of crops and fields.  The feud was to cause both families to erratically loose then gain fortunes as at one time one was winning then the next time they would loose.    This was all happening while Scotland and England were struggling for the throne.  The Cunninghams seemed to get the better of their rivals during the decade or so of fighting, but the Earl of Eglington(Montgomery) held great favour with James V and so benefited from the power that this gave them.

 Two Castles Destroyed

Eglington Castle

Both Clans had lavish castles that were only a few miles from each other; The Montgomeries of Eglinton had their castle on the banks of the Lugton and the Cuninghames hailed from the parish of Kilmaurs and Stevenston, their Castle was Kerelaw Castle.

Montgomeries of Eglington

With growing power came a corresponding growth of rivalry, until the jealousy and mistrust culminated in The Cunninghhams set fire to Kerelaw Castle in 1488. Although slow to take hold the floors were made of oak, as well as the beams and the furniture.  The fire spread gradually but surely from the basement to the turrets.  This was the end of Kerelaw Castle, it remains in ruins to this day.  Now the Cunninghams were angrier than ever and set on revenge.  They nursed their wrath for years.

The Earl of Glencairn retaliated by later burning down Eglinton Castle in 1528, the castle was rebuilt afterwards.

Kerelaw Castle

Opposing Sides in Battle and a Chief Slain
The two families were for a good while on opposite sides of the political fence and also religious; Cunningham was Protestant and Montgomery was Catholic.

The Montgomery’s and the Cunninghams were on opposing sides at the Battle of Sauchieburn (1488), with Hugh Montgomery among the victorious rebels.   Alexander Cunningham, 1st Earl of Glencairn was killed in battle as was the defeated James III.

In 1568 at the Battle of Langside the Montgomerys fought on the side of Mary Queen of Scots.  They were defeated and the Queen lost.  The Earl was declared guilty of treason by the Regency and imprisoned in Doune Castle. After being released he worked hard trying to secure safety and tolerance for other catholics.  His next two successors would follow him in supporting Mary Queen of Scots.  The Cunninghams were Protestants and did not.

During the upheavals of the 1560s and early 1570s  Alexander, 4th Earl of Glencairn (Cunningham) was among the most single-minded protestants of the Reformation.  In the Civil war he emerged as one of the core of the King’s men who overthrew Mary Queen of Scots.  The 3rd Earl of Eglington (Montgomery) was Catholic and until 1571 a Queen’s man, but in that year he and the other conservative Ayrshire lords changed sides and were thus able to end up on the winning side in 1573.  Finally the Cunninghams and the Montgomerys were on the same side.

The Murder of Hugh Montgomerie

Lainshaw Castle

In 1585 Hugh Montgomerie, 4th Earl of Eglinton was travelling to Stirling.  He had been ordered to attend court by the King.  The Earl was accompanied by a few domestic servants.  He stopped at Lainshaw Castle to dine with his close relative, a Montgomery, the Lord of Lainshaw, whose Lady was a Margaret Cunningham of Aiket Castle, with sisters married to John Cunningham of Corsehill and David Cunninghame of Robertland.

There was a plot to betray and kill the Earl, Hugh Montgomery, the story goes that he was followed from the castle and murdered.  It is believed that the Lady, who was a Cunningham or some say a servant who was a Cunningham climbed to the battlements after the meal to hang out a white table napkin and thereby signalling the troops who waited outside that the Earl was there.

Annick Ford

Thirty Cunninghames attacked the Earl as he crossed Annick Ford and cut his servants to pieces; the Earl himself was dispatched with a single shot from the pistol of John Cunningham of Clonbeith Castle. His horse carried his dead body along the side of the river, still known as the ‘Weeping’, ‘Mourning’ or ‘Widows’ path.

Revenge on the Cunninghams  

A wave of bloody revenge swept over Cunninghame and elsewhere. In retribution the Cunningham relatives, friends and supporters were killed without mercy by the Montgomerys.

Aiket was killed near his home; Robertland and Corsehill escaped to Denmark. Clonbeith was traced to a house in Hamilton, possibly Hamilton Palace and hacked to pieces by Robert Montgomery and John Pollock. Robert also killed the Earl of Glencairn’s brother the Commendator of Kilwinning Abbey, Alexander of Montgreenan, thought to have instigated Hugh’s murder. He rode to Montgreenan and shot the Commendator at his own gate.

The Crown attempted to step in but failed.  At a parliamentary session in 1606, the Earls of Glencarin and Eglinton, along with their followers, fought each other from “seven till ten hours at night”.  Neither the King nor the Parliament was able to settle the dispute.  The crown had made repeated attempts to reconcile the families between 1595 and 1604.

Kilwinning Abbey

Kilwinning Abbey

In 1570 the two Clan also clashed over control of Kilwinning Abbey. By this time the Montgomieries’ dominance of local patronage was almost complete; only the abbey remained outside of their jurisdiction.   The Earl of Glencairn’s  fourth earl’s son of his second marriage, Alexander Cunningham of Montgreenan, was appointed commendator of Kilwinning Abbey and contested the right of Hugh Montgomery, third earl of Eglinton, to act as bailie of the abbey’s regality.    Alexander was thought to be the instigator behind the plot to kill the 4th Earl of Ellington, Hugh Montgomery.

Interestingly there are tales of a Ley tunnel which is said to run rom Kilwinning Abbey, under the ‘Bean Yaird’, below the ‘Easter Chaumers’ and the ‘Leddy firs’, and then underneath the Garnock and on to the Montgomery’s Eglinton Castle.

The King Steps In … Again

James VI was made aware of the situation and he decided to intervene on behalf of the Earl of Eglinton.  A reason for this may have been that the Earl of Eglinton was a Roman Catholic and the Earl of Glencairn was suspected of heresy and, indeed, of being in league with Henry VIII, who was trying to gain domination of Scotland.

The government of King James VI of Scotland eventually managed to make the chiefs of the two clans shake hands. In 1661 Lord High Chancellor William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn, married Margaret Montgomery, daughter of Alexander, 6th Earl of Eglinton, drawing a line under the feud.

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The Atholl Highlanders are Europe’s only legally recognised private army, although merely a ceremonial regiment and not officially part of the British Army they were awarded colours.

Atholl Highlanders at the 2009 Gathering

The Regiment evolved from the 77th Regiment of the Foot who were raised by the 4th Duke of Atholl in 1777 (not to be confused with an earlier 77th – Mongomeries Highlanders or a later one – the Middlesex Regiment) . This date will be familiar to any scholars of American history since this was a time when the Brits were quite busy attempting to deal with those pesky colonial types on that side of the Atlantic. They were also about to have their already full hands made even fuller by the French and Spanish jumping in too.

Enter the 77th! (sort of)

Unfortunately the regiment didn’t quite make it to the heart of the fighting. Formed as a relief regiment they spent most of their time over in Ireland waiting to be called into the fray. Under the conditions on which the men signed up they were supposed to serve for either three years or the duration of the war with America. In 1781 at the end of their term of service the men were all expecting to return home, however they were transported to England and marched down to Portsmouth ready to embark on a long sea voyage to the West Indies. This was too much for the men of the 77th who promptly mutinied and refused to go. Exasperated their commanders marched them back to Berwick and the regiment was disbanded in 1783, thus ended the less than glorious history of the 77th.

And that would have been the end of it had it not been for, of all people, the Earl of Eglington. In 1839 the Earl had been rather miffed that the year before Queen Victoria’s coronation had been a rather drab affair by normal standards and the traditional banquet had been cancelled after George IV’s coronation nosh up ended in most of the silverware going missing afterwards.

The Earl decided to put on a tournament at Elgington house in Ayrshire. This being the height of the Gothic revival the while thing was to include a medieval jousting competition. Alas this early forerunner of ‘The Gathering’ ran into several problems including the weather and the events own popularity which ended up with most of Ayrshire gridlocked.

Nevertheless one of the ideas planned for the tournament was for a ceremonial guard, The 6th Duke of Atholl, also Lord Glenlyon offered to supply this and the regiment was reborn as the Atholl Highlander’s. As a purely ceremonial guard the  regiment performed several duties such as escorting Queen Victoria during her tour of Perthshire in 1844 and while a guest at Blair Castle.

In recognition of the service performed by the Highlanders, All local volunteers raised from around the estate the Queen agreed to award them with colours and this was presented by Lady Glenlyon.

The only private army in Europe have withstood the times and indeed are still there albeit 100 strong when many other famous Scottish Regiments have long since disappeared. Many of those who have volunteered with the regiment have seen active service elsewhere, for instance serving with other regiments during both world wars.

So if you ever get into a standup fight with the Duke of Atholl and feel tempted to utter the phrase ‘oh yeah, you and whose army?’ you might want to rethink that strategy.

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Otterburn Battle

On the 5th of August, 1388, the Battle of Otterburn took place. This was a skirmish between Scotland’s James, 2nd Earl of Douglas, and England’s Henry “Hotspur” Percy, the son of the Earl of Northumberland. This battle was part of continuous Anglo-Scottish border conflicts that were quite common at the time. It was a decisive Scottish victory, but was also a relatively bloody affair, with thousands of casualties, mainly on the English side.

Since it was a border fight, many of the lowland clans fought along with the Earl of Douglas. Some of these families included Clan Lindsay, Clan Johnstone, Clan Montgomery, Clan Graham, and Clan Gordon. Since it was such a decisive and famous victory several ballads were written about it, including a ballad called The Battle of Otterburn.

In the ballad a number of the families get mention, including the Gordons on a couple of occasions.

The ballad begins:

It fell about the Lammas tide

When the muir men win their hay,

The doughty Earl of Douglas rode

Into England to catch a prey.

It then continues to mention some of the clans there:

He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,

With them the Lindsays light and gay -

Later on in the ballad it goes on to claim that the Scots proved to have been quite blood thirsty, particularly the Gordons, and slayed a lot of their enemy.

The moon was clear, the day drew near,

The spears in flinders flew,

But mony a gallant Englishman

Ere day the Scotsmen slew.

The Gordons good in English blood

They steeped their hose and shoon.

There were also a number of Scottish casualties too, including, unfortunately for the Gordons, their leader, and father of Sir Adam Gordon, who also went on to give his life for his country.

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I’d like to continue by reproducing Alaistair Moffat’s reading given at St Giles. It was an excellent account of the battle and the aftermath.

—

FLODDEN ADDRESS. – ALISTAIR MOFFAT

When dawn broke on the morning of 10th September, 1513, the landscape of hell was revealed. On the gently undulating northern ridges of Branxton Hill more than 10,000 men lay dead or dying. In the midst of the carnage were the naked, plundered bodies of King James IV of Scotland, his half-brother, Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews, George Hepburn, Bishop of the Isles, two abbots, nine great earls of Scotland, fourteen lords of parliament, innumerable knights and noblemen of lesser degree and many thousands of farmers, ploughmen, weavers and burgesses. It was the appalling aftermath of the battle of Flodden, the greatest military disaster in Scotland’s history.

In the grey light of that terrible dawn, sentries posted around the captured Scottish cannon could make out where the brunt of battle had been joined. Below them, at the foot of the slope ran the trickle of a nameless burn now choked with slaughter, a wrack of mangled bodies, broken pikeshafts, shattered shields and everywhere blood and the sickening stench of death, vomit and voided bowels. Not all of the bodies were yet corpses. Through a long dark night the battlefield had not been a silent graveyard. Trapped under lifeless comrades, crippled, hamstrung or horribly mutilated, fatally wounded men still breathed. Bladed weapons rarely kill outright and they were often used to bludgeon men to their knees or into unconsciousness. In the churned mud of the battlefield some men will have lost their footing, fallen and been hacked at before they could get up. Many bled to death, maimed, lacerated by vicious cuts, screaming, fainting and screaming once more in their death agonies. Some will have been put out of their misery by parties of English soldiers scouring the field by torchlight for plunder, stripping the bodies, ransacking them for valuables. But other men will have lingered on in

unspeakable pain, praying to their God, passing in and out of consciousness, slowly bleeding to death. The fury of the battle on Flodden field may have been stilled and awash with death and defeat. But all was not yet over. In an instant the plunderers and scavengers looked up and the sentries by the cannon stood to, frantically peering through the morning light. They could hear the rumbling thunder of hoofbeats – and then, suddenly, riders erupted over Barelees Rig. With 800 horsemen at his back, Lord Alexander Home galloped hard across the horrors of the battlefield and up the slopes of Branxton Hill. They had not come back to Flodden to rejoin a lost battle but to rescue their captured ordnance. And they very nearly succeeded. After a sharp skirmish, the English gunners managed to load and get off a volley at Home’s squadron, and they scattered.

And so it ended. As the Border horsemen wheeled round and raced out of range, the remnants of the shattered Scottish army were limping across the Tweed at Coldstream. There was no organised pursuit. The victorious English army had taken heavy casualties and the Earl of Surrey and his captains were exhausted. In any event, their bloody work was done. The floors o’ the Forest were a’ wede awa, Flodden was a national disaster, a harbinger of lawlessness in the shape of the Border Reivers, the beginning of a long period of political uncertainty and the last medieval battle in the history of Britain. The last time a king was to die leading his army.

It was also an epic. As two huge armies mustered and marched into history, extraordinary scenes had been witnessed. At Ellemford, high in the Lammermuirs above Duns, where sheep now graze on the flanks of the hills, where buzzards hang in the updrafts and an elegant bridge crosses the Whiteadder, King James IV and his army camped. Huge guns were trundled down the hill trails, dragged by oxen, and by 21st August 1513, almost 30,000 men had massed in this beautiful, now lonely valley. Two days later, the largest force ever to leave Scotland crossed the Tweed at the fords below Coldstream. They had declared war, they had entered the realm of the Tudors, of the ferociously ambitious and bull-like Henry VIII.

Meanwhile Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the Bishop of Durham carried the standard of St Cuthbert before their battle-hardened troops. In front of the high altar of the great cathedral, Howard had watched the bishop bless the flag of the Haliwerfolc. The lands of Palatinate, of the Prince-Bishops of Durham, reached to the Tweed and beyond, and in an early definition of Englishness, their people were known as the Holy Man’s Folk, the Haliwerfolc. Ancient allegiances were being roused and summoned.

Between 2nd and 9th September two vast armies circled each other in a small corner of North Northumberland, like heavyweight boxers looking for weaknesses or waiting for wrong moves. After the Earl of Surrey had despatched a herald, the Rouge Croix, it was finally agreed that battle would be joined on 9th September. Supplies for almost 70,000 men, horses and camp followers were running dangerously low

and neither army could remain in the field much longer.

Realising the strength of the Scots’ entrenched position, Surrey led his men to the east, skirting Flodden Edge and staying out of artillery range. On the morning of the appointed day, he crossed the River Till and took up a position to the north of James IV’s army, barring any retreat to Scotland. And then, on a damp afternoon, the greatest battle ever fought between England and Scotland began.

On the left wing of the Scottish host, the Highlanders led by the Earl of Huntly massed in formation with Lord Home’s Borderers, and in the moments before their chiefs roared the claideamh mor, the order to charge, the Gaelic-speaking warriors did something remarkable. They began to summon the army of the dead. They began the sloinneadh, the naming of the names of memory. To bolster his courage, each man began to recite his genealogy. Many waiting to charge could go back 20 generations. As if they were offering up the murmur of prayer, each man remembered why he had come to fight. Is mise mac Iain, mac Ruaridh, mac Domhnuill. I am the son of John, the son of Roderick, the son of Donald. And once their quiet voices stilled, the roar of the claideamh mor rent the air and they broke into the charge. With their broadswords and Lochaber axes, the Highlanders tore into the English ranks, the division led by Edmund Howard, They scattered and a rout was only prevented when Lord Dacre rode to the rescue with his English Borderers. As history rumbled across Branxton Hill, fortune appeared to be smiling on the Scots.

At the same time, James IV was about to make a catastrophic decision, a crucial error of judgement. Instead of occupying an elevated position at the rear of his vast army, he chose to lead from the front. His division raced down Branxton Hill and as they reached the lower slopes and much softer ground, many men began to skid and lose their footing. This unsteadiness made it very difficult for them to control their long, 12 foot pikes. The wet ground made them charge out of formation, only engaging piecemeal with the solidly planted ranks of English billmen, With their shorter, more easily handled bills, they began to slice into James IV’s division. And as the men at the back saw the Scottish pikes go down, they hesitated and many of them ran, believing their king to be killed. By leading from the front, James was immediately submerged in the ruck of the fighting, only able to see what was directly in front of him, in no position to direct his forces. The result was disaster.

The legacy of Flodden was most immediately and keenly felt in the Borders. North of the Tweed the memory of the battle is kept alive in the fabric of the midsummer common ridings. At Selkirk the ceremony of the casting of the colours is unique in Britain and it is based on the return of a soldier known as Fletcher, traditionally believed to have been the only one of sixty from the town to return. In his bloodied hand he held aloft, in a gesture of desolate defiance, a flag captured from the men of Macclesfield in Cheshire. Many Englishmen had fought and fallen at Flodden. And passions still run high. When the Mayor of Macclesfield recently wrote to the Provost of Selkirk asking for the return of the flag, he was told that he would need to come to the Borders and take it.

Flodden is an immense story. Like Culloden in 1746, it signalled the end of a fading, feudal Scotland.  And it also ushered in a century of lawlessness, the criminal society controlled by the appalling Border Reivers. Across Europe, renaissance, enlightenment and the reformation were changing lives, forming new ideas and creating the institutions of the modern world. In the first half of the 16th century, central authority broke down in a leaderless nation, and while swords and spears spoke in Scotland, the law was often silent.

What is to be learned from all of that suffering and slaughter, from all of those ancient enmities? First that they are ancient and must remain firmly in the past. In 2014 Scotland faces a historic choice and whichever way the people of Scotland vote, it must be a signal lesson of Flodden that enmity, even ancient enmity can have no part. And it is to the credit of politicians on all sides of the argument that it has not reared an ugly head. But it might.

And alongside that it mustmbe important to remember, to understand the visceral, bloody realities of whatmwent on on that terrible day 500 years ago. Lest we forget, Flodden should become a place of remembrance and of pilgrimage, a place where the uncomfortable lessons of history can be learned and never forgotten.

Two weeks ago, on one of the countless beautiful evenings of this glorious summer, I drove over to Branxton. As the sun threw long shadows across the gently undulating fields, I tried to imagine the 10th of September, 1513, the distant roar of thousands of men, the screams, the fear and feral closeness of hand-to-hand fighting when

men can smell the breath, smell the sweat of men grunting pushing, hacking, swearing at them, trying to kill them. In a Gaelic phrase, I tried to listen for the music of the thing as it happened. I tried to listen to the slow, sad music of our history. I hope that many in Scotland and England hear it too.

Prior to the sir Malcolm MacGregor (who has admitted that try as he might he can not find a single MacGregor involved in the battle) researched the casualty lists. The following names are clans and families who are known to have fought at Flodden along with notable people who fell in the battle:

From the Highland Clans: 

Campbell, Erskine, Fraser, Gordon, Graham, Guthrie, Haldane, Hay, Keith, Leslie, Lindsay, Macaulay, Macfarlane, Mackay, Maclean, Macnab, Menteith, Moncreiff, Moray, Murray, Ogilvy, Oliphant, Ramsay, Rattray, Ross, Ruthven, Seton, Sinclair, Stewart, Forbes, Forsyth, Grant, MacKenzie, MacNaughton, Ross, Skene, Buchanan Of Leny, MacDonald

The Lowland and Border Clans and Families:

Adair, Abercromby, Adam, Anstruther, Baillie, Baird, Balfour, Barclay, Blackadder, Bonar, Boswell, Carnegie, Cathcart, Cleland, Cockburn, Colville, Craig, Crauford, Crichton, Cunningham, Dunbar, Dundas, Edmonstone Of Duntreath, Elphinstone, Fotheringham, Gray, Grierson, Haig, St.Clair Of Roslin, Henderson, Hepburne, Herries, Home, Hoppringle, Houston, Lauder, Liddel, Lockhart, Lumsden, Lyon, Masterson, Maitland, Maule, Maxtone, Maxwell, Melville, Muirhead, Mure, Napier, Rollo, Sempill, Somerville, Spottiswood, Stewart Of Traquair, Allardice, Ballingall, Kerr, Colville, Crammond, Eliott, Ferguson, Fleming, Foreman (Standard Bearer), Inche, Inglis, Johnstone, Kirkcaldy, Knolis, Logan, Montgomery, Morton, Muir, Nelson Of Madinpap, Otterbrun, Pitcarin, Pringle, Reid, Rorison, Savage, Scott, Seton, Tunstall, Vallanche, Wood Of Raik, Kennedy, Douglas, Hamilton, Livingstone, Wemyss, Wallace, MacLellan, MacCulloch, MacDowall

Chief Or Notable Head Of House/Family

King James IV, Archbishop Of St.Andrews (King’s Son), Earl Of Morton ( Grandson Of James 1), Earl Of Glencairn, Douglas Of Drumlanrig, Sir James Dunbar, Dundas, Lord Elphinstone, Lord Erskine, Earl Of Huntly, Earl Of Montrose, Sir Alexander Guthrie, Haig Of Bemersyde, Haldane Of Gleneagles, Earl Of Errol, Earl Of Bothwell, Sir William Keith, Earl Of Cassilis, Earl Of Rothes, Earl Of Crawford, MacDowal, Earl Of Garthland, MacFarlane Of Arrochar, Hector MacLean Of Duart, Maxwell Lord Of Carlaverock, Sir John Moncreiffe Of That Ilk, Moray Of Abercairney, Ramsay Of Dalhousie, Rattray Of That Ilk, Rollo Of Duncrub, Master Of Ruthven, Lord Sempill, Lord Seton, Earl Of Caithness, Earl Of Atholl, Earl Of Lennox, Lord Darnley, Master Of Angus, Anstruther Of That Ilk, Ballingall Of That Ilk, Master Of Eliott, Lord Forbes, Master Of Lovat, Sir Alexander Gordon Of Lochinvar, Sir Alexander Gordon Of Knockenshene, Grant Of Freuchie, John Henderson Of Fordell, Lord Alexander Home, Sir Patrick Houston Of That Ilk, William Johnstone Of That Ilk, Lord Keith, Lord Lorn, Lyon (Sons Of Lord Glamis), MacKenzie Of Kintail, Sir Alexander MacNaughton Of That Ilk, Andrew Pitcairn Of Pitcairn And 7 Sons, Lord Ross, William Ruthven Of That Ilk, Sir Walter Scott Of Buccleuch, Alexander Skene Of That Ilk, Sir David Wemyss, Earl Of Argyll, Lord Kinnaird, Master Of Cathcart, MacDonald Of Lochalsh.

—–

The St Giles Service…

Just over 40 clan chiefs  attended the St Giles service. At the end of the service they mustered for a photograph on the steps. To help you identify who was there we have been given a sketch with a key to the names:

1. Sir Walter Riddell of Riddell 2. The Hon. Elizabeth Fairbairn 3. Madam Pauline Hunter of Hunterston 4. Sir David Bannerman of Elsick 5. Lord Polwarth 6. Andrew Wallace Younger of that Ilk 7. Andrew Dewar Durie of Durie CBE 8. Michael Ancram, Marquess of Lothian 9. Andrew MacThomas of Finegand 10. Earl of Dundee 11. David Campbell of Strachur 12. Roderick Macneil of Barra 13. Sir James McGrigor 14. Earl of Eglinton and Winton 15. Professor David Hannay of Kirkdale and of that Ilk 16. Henry Trotter Younger of Charterhall 17. John MacArthur of that Ilk 18. Duncan Paisley of Westerlea 19. Richard Carmichael of Carmichael 20. Earl of Caithness21. Earl of Lauderdale 22. The Hon. Alexander Leslie 23. Earl of Erroll  24. Lord Napier and Ettrick 25. Madam Arabella Kincaid of Kincaid 26. David Cranstoun of that Ilk 27. Jamie Macnab of Macnab 28. Earl of Wemyss and March 29. Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw  30. The Hon. Kate Nicolson 31. Duke of Montrose 32. The Hon. Peregrine Moncreiffe of that Ilk 33. Martin Haldane of Gleneagles 34.  Lord Sempill 35.  Andrew Marjoribanks of that Ilk 36. Donald MacLaren of MacLaren  37.  Duke of Hamilton 38. Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank 39. Isla St Clair 40. Marquess of Ailsa 41. Madam Margaret Eliott of Redheugh 42. Sir Malcolm MacGregor of MacGregor 43. Lord Macdonald of Macdonald 44.  Richard Oliphant of that Ilk

This image will help you identify the chiefs:

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Lochranza Castle

Lochranza Castle on Arran was built in the 13th century. It passed to the Stewarts of Menteith and became a royal castle when Robert Stewart became King in 1371. In the 1450s the Tower House was granted to the Montgomeries. They held the castle for the next 250 years.

In the 16th Century the castle’s owner decided to modernise it. Two new storeys and a tower provided extra room. The old spacious interior was subdivided into smaller more private, family-orientated chambers. Gone were the days when a laird had to greet all his vassals in one vast hall.

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It’s interesting to see how many crest use the image of a woman within them.

Think the Urquhart crest was most definitely designed by a man.

Here are the ones I have found:

Falconer Clan Crest

Glas Clan Crest

Lyon Clan Crest

Montgomery Clan Crest

Murray Clan Crest

Ogilvie Clan Crest

Preston Clan Crest

Urquhart Clan Crest

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