SELECTING A CHIEFTAIN

Evening Star, Issue 22631, 24 April 1937, Page 26

SELECTING A CHIEFTAIN

FORMER SCOTTISH PRACTICES POLICY OF THE GLAHS The interesting legal conflict, which has lately been in progress, for the chieftainship of the Macleans of Ardgour draws attention to_ the diversity 6f former Scottish practice in dealing with the rival claims of heirs of lino and heirs male to succeed as chiefs of clans, stated ‘ The Times,’ in an editorial, recently. In the days when a clan was a fighting machine, and a chief’s importance was reckoned in accordance with the number of claymores he could put into the field, there are many instances in which an heir male was preferred to the heir of line; sometimes even a brother, an uncle, or a cousin of full age was made chief if the late chief’s son was too young to lead the clan in battle. That, wo are told, was in accordance with the Celtic practice, which might indeed content itself with making th. elder kinsman only captain of the dan during the minority, bub sometimes made him chief outright. But later, when the tenure of land began- to become important, a tendency denoy arose to admit as suocesso rthe son of a chief’s daughter who had inherited the dead chief’s estates rather than the heir male who might be landless or own only a small property. This, for example, was done by the Gordons when they accepted the Seton son of the daughter and heir of Gordon of Gordon in the fifteenth century. _ He took the name of Gordon, and his son became Earl of Huntly and great-grandfather of the foutrh Earl, who was the most powerful subject in Scotland and was known as the Cock of the North.

When, however, the direct male issue failed in 1836, on the death of the fifth Duke of Gordon, then the family—for purists maintain that the Gordons were never really a clan like their neighbour within the Highland line—disregarded its own precedent. It proceeded to transfer its allegiance to the heir male, the fifth Earl of Aboyne, a fourth cousin once remoyed, who succeeded as ninth Marquess and fourteenth Earl of Huntly, although Gordon Castle and the late duke’s other estates went to the heir of lino, the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox. It is possible that Queen Victoria considered that the were mistaken in preferring the heir male, for she revived the dukedom of Gordon for the duchess’s grandson. CAMPBELLS AND ARGYLLS, In this Her Majesty appears to have reversed the policy followed by the Crown in the case of the_ Chief of the Campbells. When MacCailein Mor was created Duke of Argyll in 1701, it was provided in the patent that the dukedom should be inherited by his heirs male whatsoever; and it is difficult to imagine an heir of line claiming to be Chief of the Children of Diarmald with an heir male in the person of a Duke of Argyll to dispute the succession. In the case of the Colc(uhuons, however, there was, in the eighteenth century, a third variety of succession to a chiefdom of a .clan, as distinct from the chieftainship of a branch of a clan, when the only child of Colquhuon of Luss married Grant of Grant and Truss passed to their second son as heir of entail. He took the name of Colquhuon of Luss and was accepted as chief, although there was an heir male of his grandfather in the person of his second cousin, Colquhuon of Tullichewan. In another case, that of Mar, the heir male, obtained the estates and tried to secure the ancient earldom of Mar, which was in remainder to the heir of line, whereupon difficulties arose which led to one of the most complicated peerage disputes which ever came before the House of Lords and required an Act of Parliament even partly to settle it. In another case the earldom of Seafield, which came to Grant of Grant by_ marriage, is now enjoyed by the heir of line, while her uncle, Lord Strathspey, who as heir male inherited his brother’s peerage of 1884 and baronetcy of 1625, became thirty-first Chief of the _ Grants. On the other hand, when Sir Reginald Macleod of Macleod, the "twenty-seventh Chief of the Macleods, died in 1935, he was succeeded as twenty-eighth Lady of Dunvegan by his elder daughter, who took the name of Flora Mrs Macleod of Macleod and has since been elected Chief of the Clan Macleod Society. Yet in the sixteenth century the same clan passed oyer the heir of line, who later married Campbell of Castleweem, and the ninth chief’s absent brothers in favour of a male second cousin. It was not until nearly 40 years later that the chiefdom returned to the help mala of the ninth chief, and in the present instance the male line of Macleod is by no means extinct, MUNROS AND SEAFORTHS. Another similar succession may be noted in the case of Munro of Foulis, for the eldest daughter of the'late Sir Hector Munro is now thirty-second Lady of Foulis, and has taken the name of Mrs Munro of Foulis, while the baronetcy has gone to the heir male. Then there is th© succession to the last Mackenzie of Kintail, who was Earl of Seaforth and twenty-first Chief of the Mackenzies. Th© heir male in this case, Mackenzie of Allangrange, succeeded as twenty-second Chief and when his younger son died in 1907 Mackenzie of Ord claimed to be heir male and twenty-fifth Chief, while his sister, who had become Lady of Allangrange, as heir of entail, was allowed to matriculate the undifferenced arms of Mackenzie of Kintail. Yet those same undifferenced arms have been allowed to the heir of line of the last Earl of Seaforth, who, although paternally a Brodrick, has inherited Brahan and the Seaforth estates through the families of Stanley of Alderley and Stewart of Glasserton, and is now Stewart-Mackenzio' of Seaforth. Those who support the succession of the heir of line, although perhaps a stranger in blood, as chief of a clan, may reasonably maintain that the new possessor of the traditional estates has at least means with which to support the dignity; while those who adhere to the older system ask, with equal reason, what is to happen if the heir of line has to dispose of the estates by whose tenure the chiefdom is apparently held. They point to the fact that some hereditary chiefs and chieftains are already landless, and that some equally landless men have been elected as chieftains without, so far as can be seen, impairing the well-being of their clan.