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Clan Ross

SUCCESS NOURISHES HOPE


The first recorded clan Ross chief was Fearcher Mac an t-Sagirt ("Son of the priest" in English) - in 1234 he also became the first Earl of Ross, as recognised by King Alexander II of Scotland.

The clan Ross fought for Robert the Bruce against the English during the Scottish Wars of Independence, but sided with the Government forces during the 18th century Jacobite uprising. They also fought a bloody feud with clan MacKay in the 15th century.

The Ross clan motto is "Spem successus alit" (Success nourishes hope) and the clan crest is a hand holding a laurel garland.

Scottish History

of Clan Ross


The blood is strong

Clan Ross takes its name from the old Celtic word, “ros” meaning a promontory of land. Such a word well describes the long narrow neck of land which separates the Moray Firth from the Dornoch Firth in the north east of Scotland. Firth is a Scottish word for the estuary of a river or other open stretch of water and it was on the peninsula or “ros” which lies between the coasts of the Moray and Dornoch Firths that the Ross family became established in the 12th century and from which the clan derives its name.

Most of the largest settlements were on or close to the eastern seaboard and included Dingwall, which was the headquarters of the Ross family and the former county town, and the smaller burghs of Cromarty, Fortrose and Tain, in whose life the clan was also influential. These lands were originally part of Macbeth’s kingdom of Moray, but later King Malcolm IV, who reigned from 1153 to 1165, turned the peninsula between the Moray and Dornoch Firths, including the area around the smaller Cromarty Firth into a separate earldom, which he bestowed upon Malcolm MacHeth.

When Malcolm died a batchelor and was succeeded by his brother William the Lion, MacHeth rebelled unsuccessfully against the new King and was therefore deprived of his estates.

When King William I’s son succeeded him as King Alexander II in 1214, he was soon challenged by another uprising in the northern part of his kingdom and marched to put down this rebellion by his rival for the Scottish throne, Donald Bane. On this occasion the king was given great support by the chief of the Clan Ross, Fearchar Mac an t’ Sagairt.

Once the revolt was safely over King Alexander remembered the help he had received from Fearchar Mac an t-Sagairt, who was heir to the O’Beolains of the great Irish royal house of Tara, who were hereditary chiefs of Applecross in Ross and Cromarty and in 1234 created him officially Earl of Ross. The new earl could trace his descent from King Niall and was also the hereditary keeper of the Abbey of Applecross, which had been founded by St. Maeirubha in 673.

Nothing now remains of the abbey, apart from a few carved stones, which are preserved in the present 19th century village church.

The holiness of the character of Fearchar, first Earl of Ross may however be judged from the fact that he founded another abbey at the little village of Fearn, half way between Nigg and Tarbat Ness on the peninsula between the Dornoch and Cromarty Firths. The chapel of the original abbey was badly damaged in 1742, when the weight of heavy snow caused the roof to collapse, tragically killing forty-four of the worshippers, including several members of the Ross Clan.

What remained of the abbey chapel was incorporated into the village parish church.

Another indication of the religious nature of the first Earl of Ross is that his clan was also known as Clan An drias. Andrias related to followers of Scotland’s patron saint, St. Andrew.

His son William succeeded the earl. Shortly before his succession, during a revolt against him, his son, who was also called William, was caught and abducted. He was rescued with the help of members of Clan Munroe, who were rewarded with lands and who from then on became strong allies of Clan Ross.

Battle honours of Clan Ross

By this time the Ross family were playing a prominent part in the life of Scotland and William, the second earl, formed an alliance with Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, against their common enemy – the English.

These were dangerous, violent times and the leaders and supporters of Clan Ross also had to fight off the predatory attentions of the raiding Norsemen culminating in the victory over King Haakon and his Norwegian warriors at the Battle of largs, which raged from September to 4th October, 1263. King Alexander III placed the Earl of Ross in command of one of the wings of the Scottish army and the Ross clansmen played a brave and prominent part in the prolonged fighting.

Despite the conflict of his father’s times with the Norwegians, the third Earl, William, had the courage to speak up in the Scottish Parliament in 1283 in favour of the accession to the throne of the young Norwegian Princess Margaret, the little Maid of Norway, as he recognised that she had the most direct claim. When she died in Orkney while on her way to Scotland, Ross along with his fellow Scottish nobles accepted that King Edward I should adjudicate amongst the other claimants for the Scottish throne and in 1296 he swore fealty to the English King.

Despite this promise, however, he was amongst the nobles who made up the Community of the Realm and who subsequently forced Edward’s choice, the weak John Balliol, to refuse to send Scottish troops to support his English master in his struggle against the French. Furious, King Edward, who was not for nothing nicknamed the Hammer of the Scots, turned the might of his English army against the Scots and at the resultant Battle of Dunbar in 1296, Ross was taken prisoner. After his capture he was taken south to the English capital and imprisoned as a hostage in the dreaded tower.

When he was at last released it was apparently on condition that he represent Edward’s interests in his northern territories. It was thus that he found himself trapped in 1306 into being forced to surrender King Robert the Bruce’s young daughter into the hands of the English. The ten-year-old Princess Marjorie had sought sanctuary at the shrine of St. Duthic, which was within the Clan Ross territories at Tain. Little Marjorie was taken south to London and imprisoned in a tiny, iron barred cage in the Tower of London, where Ross had himself so recently suffered.

William Earl of Ross felt great shame as a result of this incident, but the Bruce later forgave him and they went on to become great friends and allies. William subsequently married Bruce’s sister, Princess Maud. Upon her death he remarried. His second wife was Margaret; daughter of Sir David Graham and it was from their son Hugh that the Rosses of Balnagowan were descended.

The men of the Ross clan fought for Robert the Bruce and helped defeat the English at the Battle of Bannockburn near Stirling in 1314. Sadly Earl William’s younger son Sir Walter Ross, was one of the few Scottish nobles slain at the famous battle. Six years later, in 1320, the Ross seal was proudly affixed to the Treaty of Arbroath.

Hugh from whom, as already mentioned, the Rosses of Balnagowan trace their descent succeeded William as fourth earl. Hugh was killed fighting against the English troops of King Edward III at the Battle of Halidon Hill near Berwick on Tweed in 1333. He is claimed to have killed no fewer than five English soldiers before he was mown down by the superior force of the English archers and died with an arrow piercing his throat at what became one of the worst massacres the Scots ever suffered and which also cost the lives of many Ross clansmen.

His son and heir, William, was being educated in Norway and it was three years before he returned to Scotland to claim his lands. William was the last Earl of Ross as he died in 1372 without a direct male heir. The title therefore passed to his daughter Euphemia, who became Countess of Ross in her own right and who married Sir Walter Leslie.

Euphemia, Countess of Ross is often confused with her aunt Euphemia who married King Robert II.

The Earldom eventually passed to the MacDonalds of the Isles and it was to defend his right to the lands of the Ross family against the rival claims of the Stewarts, that Donald, Lord of the Isles, fought the Battle of Harlaw.

The battle took place in 1411 at Harlaw about two miles north west of Inverurie. The fighting lasted all day and well into the night. It was one of the bloodiest fights ever to take place on Scotiish soil and in fact became known as Red Harlaw because of the terrible carnage. When in the end the vicious fighting eventually stopped neither side regarded Harlaw as a victory, although with hindsight both sides did try to portray it as such.

The Lords of the Isles as Earls of Ross became Lords of the Scottish Parliament, but the earldom reverted to the crown when John the last Lord of the Isles, was found guilty of treason because of a seditious correspondence which he had entered into with the English. Later King James III created his own younger son Duke of Ross in 1488.

Later the clan chiefship, however, devolved separately through the countess Euphemia’s uncle, Hugh Ross of Balnagowan, who is recognised as first chief of the clan.

Following the Union of the Crowns at the beginning of the 17th century several members of Clan Ross were amongst the so-called hungry Scots who went south to London to further their interests. After King Charles I came to the throne in 1625 the Ross Clan became known as staunch royalists and Alexander Ross was rewarded by being appointed royal chaplain while James Ross became keeper of the King’s deer herds. When Charles was challenged by Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads, the Rosses remained loyal to the Stewart king and David, the twelth chief, led one thousand of his men in support of the monarch at the ill fated Battle of Worcester in 1643. Ross was captured and taken south to London, where he was imprisoned in the Tower. Many of his Ross Clan supporters were sentenced to be deported and were transported across the Atlantic to New England.

When in 1711 the Chief of Clan Ross died without a direct heir on the Balnagowan side of the family, the leadership of the clan passed to Ross of Pitcalnie. In 1715 he supported the Jacobite cause when Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, tried unsuccessfully, to reclaim the British throne for the Stewarts from the Hanoverians.

The estates which the Ross family owned at Balnagowan were deeply in debt and they were purchased by General Charles Ross, who was the brother of Lord Ross of Hawkhead. Thus although the Ross name remained attached to the lands, the new owners had no direct connections with it and were not Highlanders, but Lowlanders, who traced their decent from the de Roos of Normandy in the north of France. Despite this, the new Ross lairds managed to persuade the Lord Lyon King of Arms to grant them the right to use the coat of arms of Clan Ross.

Ross of Pitcalne, however, continued to be looked upon as the rightful chieftain and in 1740, he was acknowledged as such by Simon Lord Lovat and his fellow Chiefs.

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114 Clan Ross

Tartan Products

The Crests

of Clan Ross

Clan Ross
Clan Ross (Kindace, co. Ross)
Clan Ross
Clan Ross
Clan Ross

61 Clan Ross

Crest Products

Divisions

of Ross

Anderson
Corbett
Crow
Denoon
Dingwall
Duthie
Fair
Gillanders
Haggart
MacTaggart
Taggart
Vass

Spellings

of Ross

Ros
Rosse