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Clan Menzies

WILL GOD I SHALL


The name Menzies is thought to come from the lands of Mesnieres in Normancy. The clan were awarded lands in Dumfries and Argyll by King Robert the Bruce after Sir Robert de Meyners fought with him as a companion in arms.

The Menzies clan motto is "Vil God I Zal" (God willing I shall) and the clan crest is a savage's head.

Scottish History

of Clan Menzies


What’s in a name?

The Menzies name poses a pronouncement puzzle for most people.

Scots folk say ‘Mingies’, while others, and the spelling suggests this, say ‘Menzies’ exactly as it is written.

The reason for the first, correct pronounciation is due to the origins of the name, which is of almost certain French extraction.

The Menzies name and clan derives from the same English family of Manners of Etal, the head of which is the Duke of Rutland. Sir Iain Moncrieffe of that ilk, who was an expert on the genealogy of Scots families, explained that the name Menzies comes from the area of Mesnieres, near to Rouen in Normandy, and the reason the ‘z’ is never pronounced is because it is the old Scottish letter for guttural ‘y’, which is a cross between a ‘y’ and a ‘g’.

Sir Iain had in his possession a charter confirming the lands of Culdares in Glenlyon in western Perthshire. These lands were given to the first Menzies family to appear in the Scottish records “as freely, quietly, fully and honourable as any baron within the Kingdom of Scotland is able to give to any such land”. In this early thirteenth century document the granter (whose seal shows a shield Barry of six) calls himself Robert de Meyneris and also Thomas de Meyneris.

The first Menzies chief was present at the court of Alexander II by 1224 and became Chamberlain of Scotland by 1249. In common with so many other acquisitions of lands and goods and chattels in those days, things were frequently not as straightforward as they might at first appear, and there was much secret shuffling of favours. Sir Robert acquired a large amount of land in Rannoch, an area which could well have been part of the abbey lands of Dull near Aberfeldy.

Dull receives its curious name due to St Adamnan, a disciple of St Columba, who spent his working life in Glenlyon, where he was remembered best for saving the lives of his followers from the plague. He climbed up on a rock then known as Craig-diannaidh, the ‘rock of safety’, exhorted the plague to enter a hole within the rock, and sent his people sensibly up into the hills of Glenlyon, where they escaped the disease. When he died, he asked for his body to be carried down the glen, and where the first tie or ‘dull’ on his coffin chafed and broke, he was to be buried there. The first tie broke at Tulli, and there, as he requested, he was buried. But at Tulli there already existed a place of learning, a church and sanctuary at which Adamnan had preached regularly. So a more fitting place would have been hard to find and the name was changed from Tulli to Dull.

Dull is a mile at the most from the present Castle Menzies, and the story demonstrates that the area was a place of established ecclesiastical history, and considerable importance.

Also in the area were relics which demonstrated the robust and populated history of the area. There is a church dedicated to St Ciaran and Clach-na-Cruich, or Stone of the Measles. It has on the upper side a cavity which contained rain water, and it was this water which, when drunk by the patient, was reputed to cure the illness. People would flock from miles away to drink from its cups, of which there were seven, a number which added to its mystic reputation. Not for nothing was it Christened the ‘Menzies Charm stone’.

The county was also famous for its Celtic towers or forts, as well as mote hills, cairns and cists. In the middle of the 19 century, a circular urn was discovered with zig zag patterns.

Thus this granting of these lands was a singular honour. So why did the King grant Sir Robert Menzies such a prize?

The answer possibly lies in a favour. Two of Sir Robert’s sons were given the very royal names of Alexander and David, names which were rarely given to those not of royal birth. This points to their mother, Sir Robert’s wife, being of royal descent. It appears that as she is not recorded as one of King Alexander’s legitimate children, that it seems very likely she was an illegitimate lady of royal birth. She must have been someone of considerable importance, hence the granting of her in marriage, and the impressive gift of lands which accompanied her.

Just down the road at Strathtay from Dull, the stronghold of the Menzies chief was his fortified residence known as ‘Meinnearch’ in Gaelic, and was situated near Weem. In 1510, Sir Robert Menzies of that Ilk, the then chief resigned his baronies of Ennoch (possibly Rannoch) and Weem into the hands of James IV who granted them to him as the free barony of Menzies, renaming his castle as Castle Menzies.

This charter records an earlier charter, when his residence at Weem was destroyed by malefactors, described by his descendant Sir Iain Moncrieffe as ‘ferocious whelps descended from the Wolf of Badenoch’, a legendary character by the name of Stewart who even in the fearsome battlegrounds of clan warfare in the Middle Ages was head and shoulders in stature and dastardly deeds above his contemporaries.

These destroyers of the Menzies stronghold were the Stewarts of Garth, which is just at the entrance to Glenlyon from Strathtay. The items lost were listed in the Privy Council Decree against Neil Stewart of Fortingall and include a great deal of armour, four cannon and substantial furnishings.

Sacrifice and loyalty

By the sixteenth century, the Menzies chiefs were having regular skirmishes with their neighbouring landowners. The Campbells of Glenorchy were edging the Menzies lands, and trying to take more areas by force.

Perhaps due to the sheer size and desolation of their western lands, the great acres of Rannoch Moor and the fact that their lands had no natural boundaries, like a sea coastline, others too were constantly harrying their land.

The Macdonnells of Keppoch, known as Clan Rannoch of Lochaber seized and fortified the island on Loch Rannoch against Menzies control, but an especially virulent and energetic raiding clan were evocatively known as the ‘Children of the Mist’. They were a branch of the Clan Gregor, who had no lands in their own right, and were therefore always on the lookout for areas to purloin; more daring than the others, as they had nothing of their own to lose.

So with such threatening neighbours surrounding their lands and constantly reminding the Menzies of their presence, the new Menzies stronghold needed to be well fortified. James Menzies of that Ilk built a castle to serve such needs. He also served as a baron in the parliament of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Castle Menzies stands today in a largely unaltered form to when it was built in 1577.

Built on the fashionabl ‘z’ plan of its day, with gun emplacements situated to cover both the front and back doors, it has stood the test of time, and its survival owes much to the strength of its building as well as a concerted effort by the Clan Menzies Society who rescued and restored it from a ruin last century.

Ironically, the only time it was put to use and tested as a stronghold was not by the Menzies Chiefs themselves, but when it was used as a garrison by the Hanoverian troops during the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

The Menzies were naturally on the side of the Jacobites in the Risings, and on the 4th April, 1716, one of the Menzies chieftains, Alexander Menzies, was put on trial in Southwark, London for rebellion and high treason. Menzies ‘pled the King’s Pardon in regard of his extraordinary case, and those who drew him into the rebellion being about to possess his estate’. This was a direct reference to the Earl of Breadalbane, who was believed to have acted as a double agent, supporting the Jacobite cause for his own ends.

He was supposed to have given the Hanoverians information about the Menzies support for the Jacobites, Breadalbane hoping that his information would induce the Government to reward his support by gifting him the confiscated Menzies lands.

But while Menzies was aware of this, he was restrained in his condemnation. In a letter sent to his wife he comments that the Duke of Argyle arrived in London to plead for the cause of some imprisoned Atholl men. “He will be sparing for the Athole men’s lives; I will not answer for their purses” – an oblique reference to the bribing abilities of the Duke, and his readiness, in Menzies eyes, to bend the law.

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Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the Menzies family.

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122 Clan Menzies

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The Crests

of Clan Menzies

Clan Menzies
Clan Menzies (Aberdeen)
Clan Menzies
Clan Menzies

65 Clan Menzies

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Divisions

of Menzies

Dewar
Menzies of Culdares

Spellings

of Menzies

Meanies
Means
Mein
Meine
Mengues
Mennie
Meyners
Minn
Minnus
Monzie
Monzies
Manzie
Manzies
Mean
Meanie
Megnies
Meignees
Mainzies
Meigners
Meignerys
Meignes
Meignez
Meineris
Meingnes
Meingzeis
Meingzes
Meinn
Meinyeis
Meinyies
Meinzeis
Meinzies
Menees
Mengyeis
Mengzeis
Mengzes
Maynhers
Meigneis
Mengzies
Mennes
Menyas
Menyeis
Menyheis
Menyhes
Menzas
Menzeis
Menzes
Menzeys
Menzheis
Menzhers
Menzis
Meygners
Meygnes
Meyneiss
Meyner
Meyneris
Meyness
Miners
Minnis
Minnish
Monsie
Munnies
MacKmunish
MacMean
MacMeans
MacMein
MacMeinn
MacMen
MacMina
MacMine
MacMinne
MacMinnies
MacMinnis
MacMonnies
MacMyn
MacMyne
MacMynneis
Makmunish
Makmynnes

185 Clan Menzies

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