Black Watch

[gilmore]

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Another interesting note on the Sutherland's, Gunn's and MacKay's...
There is a load of history between those above clan's, you'll find it very interesting....

Yes, interesting and sometimes shameful, such as the role the Gunn chief, selected by the Countess of Sutherland, played in The Clearances in which his fellow clansmen were expelled from land they had lived on for centuries. To wit:

"In 1807 Elizabeth Gordon, 19th Countess of Sutherland, touring her inheritance with her husband Lord Stafford (later made Duke of Sutherland), wrote that "he is seized as much as I am with the rage of improvements, and we both turn our attention with the greatest of energy to turnips". As well as turning land over to sheep farming, Stafford planned to invest in creating a coal-pit, salt pans, brick and tile works and herring fisheries. That year his agents began the evictions, with ninety families forced to leave their crops in the ground and to move their cattle, furniture and timbers from their former houses to the land they were offered some 20 miles (30 km) away on the coast, living in the open until they had built themselves new houses. Stafford's first Commissioner, William Young, arrived in 1809, and soon engaged Patrick Sellar as his factor who pressed ahead with the process while acquiring sheep farming estates for himself." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherl...es#Clan_Chiefs

"The eighth MacKeamish, who was William Gunn, son of Alexander of Badenloch, was killed fighting in India in 1780. Upon his death the chiefship passed to his brother, Morrison Gunn, the ninth MacKeamish, who was also serving with the British army. Unfortunately Morrison died in Gibraltar in 1785 before he could assume the office of chief in any meaningful way. Both these chiefs died without issue, resulting in the extinction of the direct male line of Donald Crotaich, the sixth MacKeamish. Some confusion was created in 1803 when the Countess of Sutherland, on whose lands the remnants of the clan resided at the time, decided that the heir to the chiefship should be found.

A sheriff’s court was held on May 31st, 1803 in Thurso to hear arguments from various claimants. The jury at this court finally decided that Hector Gunn, great grandson of George Gunn of Borrobol, the brother of the sixth MacKeamish, was heir male, which he was. However they then proceeded to declare him chief of the clan, which they had no authority to do, as this decision can only be made by the Lyon Court, which was not consulted in the matter. Hector died almost immediately afterward. Hector’s son, George, was a protégé of the Countess, who had purchased a commission for him in the Royal Marines. In 1814, George was declared chief by someone, nobody seems completely sure who, but it was not the Lyon Court. It is probable that he simply assumed the role of chief due to the erroneous belief that his father was chief. It is doubtful that George Gunn of Rhives (Rhives being the estate given to him by the Countess, who hired him as her factor at Assynt) was ever accepted as chief by many of the clan.

The end of the clan system in 1746 had removed most feelings of loyalty and even kinship to the chief amongst the Highland clans, and the Clearances (forced removal from their lands) had created bitterness toward anyone in authority. Gunn of Rhives died in 1859 and his two sons not long after. The simple fact is that neither Hector nor George were legally chief of the clan because they were not declared so by the Lyon Court. However, the story of their appointments to be chief has crept into several authoritative works without a nod toward the legality of it. In legal and genealogical terms, the office of chief of the Clan Gunn became vacant with the death of Morrison Gunn in 1785 and remains vacant today..." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Gu...o_19th_Century