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Clan MacFarlane

THIS I’LL DEFEND


The MacFarlanes are a Highland clan, descending from the Earls of Lennox. After the death of the last Earl in 1425 the MacFarlanes claimed the earldom as their own, which led to the family of the clan chief being murdered. After regaining their fortunes, they fought against the forces of Mary, Queen of Scots, before being denounced for tyranny, murder and thieving by the government in 1594.

Clan MacFarlane were famous for their cattle raiding on the lands of their neighbouring clans. A full moon was known colloquially as "MacFarlane's Lantern" .

The MacFarlane clan motto is "This I'll Defend" and the clan crest is a savage holding a sword in one hand and pointing at a crown with the other.

Scottish History

of Clan MacFarlane


Written in blood

Landscape has always played a vital role in Scotland’s unfolding history, from the time when the Roman legions tramped the glens of Perthshire and earlier invaders halted and took stock at the various gateways to the Highlands ranged along the boundary fault line. They were fully aware that through the mists, at the top of the glens, lay a new and dangerous domain.

The Guardians of these strategic natural portals have always figured prominently in the tempestuous annals of Scotland and in the case of the Clan Macfarlane, accepted as one of the oldest and most warlike of the warrior clans, their history is indeed often written in blood.

From the West Highlands one of the principal routes leading to the conspicuously fertile and more densely populated Central Lowlands crosses a narrow neck of land from Loch Long (a sea loch giving access to the Clyde estuary) to Loch Lomond. This is the strip of land – hardly more than a mile wide – across which the Vikings once, famously, dragged their longships to plunder the rich agricultural community which had developed on the islands and along Loch Lomondside and its hinterland. This is also the territory of the Macfarlanes.

The Macfarlanes were cattle thieves of some repute and their hideaways were high among the waterfalls and glens surrounding Loch Sloy, an inaccessible spot where they drove herds and flocks several hundred strong into remote corries.

The clan adopted the name of the loch as their battle cry, or as the more genteel might have it, the clan motto. But in the 1500s and 1600s it was a phrase which often struck terror into the hearts of their many enemies.

Although Loch Sloy, right in the heart of Macfarlane country, is enlarged as a result of the ambitious hydro-electric scheme, it was still ideal for herding cattle into the high corries, out of reach of their rivals. Appropriately the tune played on the bagpipe for the clan gathering was Thogail nam bo – Lifting the Cattle.

With good reason the Macfarlanes were known through West Central Scotland as “the Wild Ones” with the bracken and scree covered sloped and empty glens in the vicinity of Arrochar as their stomping ground. One noted Lowlander, Robert Burns no less, was moved to classify the weather, the land, the sheep and most of all the people in this vicinity as ‘savage’.

Macfarlanes’ lantern

The Macfarlanes were a cadet branch of the old Celtic Earls of Lennox, a family which played a pivotal role in the power politics of Scotland for many hundreds of years. Officially the Macfarlanes were of the line of Gilchrist, a younger brother of the Third Earl of Lennox (Maldouen), having been granted the lands around Arrochar from his big brother. Later Macfarlane chiefs were in no doubt that they were the true representatives of that ‘great and ancient family’.

In fact, the clan took its name in the 14th century from Gilchrist’s great-grandson Parlan, the Gaelic form of Bartholomew, a staunch supporter of Robert Bruce.

In the Lennox area which stretched away to the east towards Glasgow and into Stirlingshire, the populations were partly agricultural and trading while others – like the Macfarlanes – were predatory and warlike. These were troubled and unsettled times and naturally there was conflict.

One of the earliest recorded episodes of strife involving the Macfarlanes which is found in any detail was an incident in 1515 commemorated in his poem ‘Squyer Meldrum’ by Sir David Lindsay. Marion Lawson, widow of John Haldane of Gleneagles, while in residence at her castle of Strathearn, received news that her lands around Boturich on Loch Lomondside were being harried by the Macfarlanes. In the opening stanzas we learn:

Ane messenger come speedily,

From the Lennox to his ladie,

Schewing how that Macfarlane,

And with him many bauld barons,

Her castell had tane perfors,

And neither left her kow nor hors…

Her lover, Squire Meldrum, chivalrous gent that he was, at once undertook the recovery of her property which the poet describes him accomplishing amid circumstances of unparalleled bravery. The Macfarlanes had actually taken possession of the tower of Boturich which Meldrum attacked and carried, Andrew Macfarlane, the chief, making unconditional surrender.

A bit of a humiliation for the Macfarlanes but glory days all the way for Meldrum who we are told by Lindsay:

Syne to Strathearn returnit again, quhair that he
By his fair ladie ressavit was full pleasantlie.

Inevitably as kinsmen and supporters of the Stewart Earls of Lennox they had been drawn increasingly during the 14th and 15th centuries into the nation’s often confused and bloodthirsty affairs. They also saw themselves in the role of protectors of the fertile lands against bands of Highland ‘caterans’, bloodthirsty marauders who came spilling down the glens seeking easy pickings on the rolling lands beyond Loch Lomond.

Although on the clan shield you’ll find the declaration – ‘This I’ll Defend’ it was not in the nature of the Macfarlanes to indulge in purely containing measures and around this time they went into an expansionist phase, extending their sphere of influence to the head of Loch Lomond and into Perthshire.

They roamed this territory offering protection to home and herd for cash (the origin of blackmail from black meal) and if this offer failed to impress, a torched croft and an empty cattle enclosure was the likely conclusion to negotiations. This was also the period when a moon, thought favourable for staging a cattle raid, became known, far beyond the confines of the clan lands, as ‘Macfarlanes’ Lantern’.

For example, in May, 1543, the Macfarlanes organised a raid on Garelochhead and carried off from Faslane and Little Balernock, 280 head of cattle, 80 sheep, 24 goats, 20 horses and mares, 80 stones of cheese and 40 bolls of barley besides murdering some of the unfortunate people.

In the following year with a motley crew of 600 ‘great thieves, limmers, robbers, common sorners of the lieges, throat-cutters, murderers, slayers of men, wives and bairns’ they harried the Colquhoun country, murdering nine of the tenants in their beds and setting the scene for even more gory events around the turn of the century.

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Family History Mini Book


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