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Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
Name: Gordon, Robert, 1580-1661
Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673
Title: Extima Scotiae septentrionalis ora, ubi Provinciae sunt Rossia, Sutherlandia,
Cathenesia, Strath-Naverniae, cum vicinis regiunculis quae eis subsunt, etiamque Moravia /
R. Gordonius à Strath-loch collegit et descripsit
Imprint: [Amsterdam : Blaeu, 1654]
Pagination: 1 map : hand col. ; 397 x 505 mm., on sheet, 528 x 617 mm.
Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
Translation of text:
Earl of Seaforth, who rules far and wide through these provinces, the head of the
family of MacKenzie. In it is Eilean Donan Castle on an island of the aforesaid strait,
where the ancestors of this Earl had their first seat. Into it flow the moderate Rivers
Shiel, Lyick[?], Connag[?], Elchaig, and Long. Glen Elchaig however reaches to the gulf of
Carron, into which the river of the same name discharges. Afterwards, traversing the coast
and passing over some less noteworthy gulfs, one comes to the gulf of Ewe, and a mile
above it Loch Ewe, enclosed on all sides by thick woods, where in former years the working
of iron was practised, but has possibly now stopped.
From here a little to the north is the gulf of Broom, a notable annual fishing ground,
with plentiful herring. That gulf seems to be called Volsas by Ptolemy. The part of Ross
inland above this is called Ard-Ross, which means the height or highest part of Ross, for
lying among very high mountains it is totally rough and uncultivated. Above the last
mentioned gulf follows the sub-region Coigach, which means fifth, for it was classed as
the fifth part of the neighbouring region of Assynt, but has now been removed and belongs
to another lordship.
Next is Assynt, stretched along the coast between the River Kirkaig and the gulf of
Eddrachillis. The promontory Rubha Stoer Assynt here runs into the sea far beyond the rest
of the coast. The River Traligill flows down from the very high mountain Ben More Assynt,
and below Ardvreck, where the lord of the place has a castle, passes through the loch
called Assynt and discharges into the sea. That mountain, with some neighbouring ones in
the inland parts of Sutherland, is famous for veins of marble, or stone to which marble is
related. But here everything is rough and uncultivated, and nothing is memorable except
the herds of deer, cattle, horses and goats, since the poor region is scarcely able to
sustain a few farmers. This sub-region was very long ago added to Sutherland and held as
part of it, but later in an unknown way was removed from that and ceded to the lordship of
others. And today the lord of the place recognises the Earl of Seaforth as superior; in
truth however it scarcely looks to Ross, since it is part of the diocese of Caithness.
Now where Ross faces the estuary of Varar, although it frequently rises into mountains,
yet on the coast and by the edges of the rivers (which are numerous) it is amazingly
abundant in crops and those of the highest quality: there is here no lack of wheat, or
rye, oats, peas, beans, or of garden herbs or fruits, beyond what one would believe in
this location. Where the River Farrar merges into the gulf of its namesake, as I have
said, is the beginning of this region; here is Lovat, an ancient castle, the old seat of
the Barons Fraser who are powerful in these parts.
The peninsula between the two gulfs, Varar and that which takes its name from the town of
Cromarty, is called Ardmeanach, which means medium height; from this I exclude the
territory and neighbourhood of Cromarty, which is, as we have related, a separate
Sheriffdom.
Here on the coast one comes to the town called Chanrie, spread out on the plains before
the pleasant and fertile hills which surround it, quite well known for its castle and
cathedral church, though the former is not complete. Once it was an episcopal seat; hence
comes its name from the canons, for their seat is called by us Chanrie; so in Elgin, a
neighbouring city in Moray, that part of it where they lived with their bishop, separated
from the rest of the city, is even today called the Chanrie.
From this town there is a daily crossing to Moray; however there is no harbour in the
town: ships land at the neighbouring Munlochy, three miles above. A mile below Chanrie on
the same coast is Rosemarkie, marked from antiquity as the site of a city, but whose
lights the neighbouring Chanrie so continuously obstructed that it never rose up. A little
further again on the coast survive the ruins of Ormond Castle, from which our Princes
derived part of their titles; quite correctly, for in these places in Ross and various
others quite large estates belong to the public purse, and their annual registers hang in
the Treasury.
Beauly, a lovely and rich former monastery, is situated at the beginning of the gulf not
far from the mouth of the River Farrar; it is now a possession of the Barons of Lovat.
There follows the small city of Cromarty at the beginning of the gulf of the same name;
one might truly say of it, that no such harbour is found from the Orkney Islands to Kent
in England (1). For the approach for ships is very easy, and within it is totally safe and
very capacious, free of sandbanks, shoals and shallows, in a word with all the good
qualities of an exceptional harbour. On each coast on the low-lying shores wooden fences
are frequent, and of great benefit; for as the tide recedes and the sand dries, fish are
caught by hand.
In the furthest recess of this gulf a river called Connel or Conan discharges; it consists
of different rivers, but ends up under this name. On its bank sits a castle of the
Mackenzies, Kildun, and a little further up is Brahan, a noble castle of the most
distinguished Earl of Seaforth, to whom no small part of the land in the neighbourhood
belongs. This river is pearl-bearing; from it not infrequently fine pearls are gathered
from oysters of this kind. But this distinction does not belong to this river alone: very
many others, both in this area and in other different ones, are not behind in this gift,
and these pearls are not lacking in the Dee, the Don, the Ythan, the Ugie and many streams
even far from the sea in the Sheriffdom of Aberdeen; and many other rivers not here
mentioned are full of these oysters.
Scarcely a mile from the mouth of this river sits the small town of Dingwall, of no great
fame, but on a rich and happy soil; not far to the north of it, there rises with many
ridges the huge and harsh Ben Wyvis; it occupies much land, and looks toward Tain (to be
mentioned shortly); yet as it supplies grassy valleys and frequent streams, it is not
entirely useless.
On the north side of the strait one comes to Foulis Castle, set back a little from the
coast, an ancestral possession of the dynasty of Monro, a family whose branches have had
quite large estates here from early times. Below on the same coast is Balnagown Castle,
held by the head in these regions of the whole family of Rosses, and that surname is
widely dispersed in these parts. A little further down one comes to Milton, a beautiful
and pleasant residence of Baron Innes.
Already in ancient times the Earls of Ross were more powerful than others in this whole
county. When they died out either all power moved to Donald of the Isles, the leading
ruler of the Hebrides, or he seized it by relationship; when his right of succession was
denied or purloined, he sought it back by force and easily held it. Then with enormous
arrogance lusting for greater illicit conquests, he crossed the Varar and seized the
neighbouring parts for himself; as there was no opposition he marched with his army to
Aberdeen. This happened about the year 1411, when James I, after the death of his father,
was being held prisoner in England against all international law, the kingdom in the
meanwhile being governed by a regent. Donald was opposed by Alexander Earl of Mar, who
slew his forces; fleeing from the field and charged with treason, he lost this county and
many other estates, and his successors never regained such power.
There follows another gulf and another peninsula: from a town on it they call this gulf
Tain Firth, it has no harbours and because of shallows is to be dreaded by ships. This
gulf, reaching many miles inland, divides Sutherland from Ross, and ends at the promontory
called Tarbat. Here there are fine and outstandingly productive fields. In it the
monastery of Fearn is in a pretty location; there is too in an inlet of this gulf the town
of Tain, with productive land around, in the old language called Bale-Guiche or
Bale-Duiche (for it is pronounced in both ways), from Dothes or Duich held to be a saint;
his church once had right of asylum, and to it frequent pilgrimages were organised in
former times. Three miles above this city, a crossing to Sutherland is available, they
call the place Portnaculter; some miles above the crossing, this strait, now quite narrow,
runs in a shallow channel, where it takes in two rivers, the Carron on the south shore,
and in the inmost recess the Oykel.
The Carron comes down from the highest ridges of the mountain Seana Bhraig, falls through
mountainous and wooded country, and cuts the area called Strathcarron. This whole area is
for the most part clothed in trees, especially noble firs, and supplies raw material to
the neighbourhood and to foreign parts; rich also in herds of cattle and groups of horses,
it has its mouth at Invercarron. The River Oykel is not at all equal in size, and flows,
as I said, into the inmost part of the gulf. It cuts that area which is called from the
river Strath Oykel, in which there are some villages but nothing worth mentioning here.
Both of these areas belong to the family of Rosses. A little beyond the River Oykel, the
boundary of the whole province is at the small River Cassley.
The mountains in this province are large, numerous and high, so that a great part of the
ground is taken up by them; yet those in the interior (apart from the previously mentioned
Wyvis which hangs over both straits) and those which are close to the sea in all the
western part leave a small amount of land for cultivation; since their names can hardly be
uttered in Latin, I omit to include them - any researcher must go to the map of the
region.
A few islands gird this shore, but not worthy of notice apart from Skye, which merits its
own description.
Clan Ross is a Scottish clan first named as such by King Malcolm IV in 1160. The first
of the current line of chiefs was Fearchar Mac-an-t-sagairt (meaning "son of the
priest") of Applecross, who was created Earl of Ross in about 1234 by King Alexander
II of Scotland as a reward for putting down rebellion in the north of Scotland. Tradition
has it that around this time the Earl of Ross granted lands in Foulis to the Munro Clan
for defeating Vikings who had invaded East Ross-shire.
Earl Fearchar's grandson William led the clan at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Hugh,
the 5th earl, was killed at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, and his successor William
died without male issue. The earldom of Ross and the chiefship of Clan Ross were then
separated:
The earldom of Ross passed through a female line, and that later led to dispute between
two rival claimants -- the Lord of the Isles and Regent Albany -- and the title reverted
to the crown in 1424. King James I of Scotland restored the title to Margaret, whose son
was Alexander, 3rd Lord of the Isles. and the earldom of Ross remained with the Lords of
the Isles until that lordship was forfeited to the crown in 1476.
The chiefship passed to Earl William's brother Hugh Ross of Rariches, who was granted a
charter, in 1374, for the lands of Balnagowan. The Rosses of Balnagowan held the chiefship
for 300+ years. David, the last of that direct line, passed the chiefship to Hon. Charles
Ross, son of Lord Ross of Hawkhead, Renfrewshire, although they were not connected by
blood.
Balnagowan passed to George, 13th Lord Ross, in 1745. William, 14th Lord Ross, died
unmarried, and Balnagowan then passed to Sir James Lockhard, 2nd Baronet of Carstairs. Sir
John, the 5th baronet, assumed the name "Ross" and then, after Carstairs was
sold in 1762, the designation "of Balnagowan."
The chiefship of Clan Ross devolved upon Ross of Pitcalnie, heir of David who was the last
of the direct line of Balnagowan.
[edit]
Scottish Wars of Independence
Clan Ross fought alongside Robert the Bruce during the Scottish Wars of Independence at
the Battle of Bannockburn 1314 and the Battle of Halidon Hill 1333.
[edit]
Clan Wars
Ferquhard Ross helped King Alexander II (1214 - 1249) crush a rebellion in Moray and
Ross-shire. He brought the King the heads of the rebel leaders and was knighted on 15th
June 1215.
1486 - Angus Roy Mackay overthrown and slain at Tarbet Church by the Clan Ross: The
MacKays and Rosses had long been at feud, again and again the Rosses had suffered
molestation of their lands from their enemies the Clan MacKay and when at last, driven to
desperation and thoroughly infuriated, they gathered their forces and marched against the
Mackay Chief, they were in the mood to teach the MacKays severe lesson. The Mackays, with
Angus of Strathnaver at their head, finding themselves fiercely attacked and being
defeated by the Rosses, sought shelter in the church of Tarbat. There several were slain,
and, the church being set on fire, Angus Mackay and many of his clansmen were burnt to
ashes.
· Battle of Strathcarron/Blair alt na charis 1486, To take revenge to this cruel act
carried out by the Clan Ross at Tarbet Church, MacKay Chief Ian MacKay helped by a force
from Clan Sutherland marched south invading the territory of Clan Ross and began laying
waste to it. Chief Alistair Ross gathered his forces of 2000 men and engaged in a long
& desperate battle with the invading forces. In the end the battle went against the
Rosses with MacKay gaining the upper hand. The Ross Chief was killed along with many of
his clan. After this the Ross Clan never fully recovered their once large numbers of
fighting men.
During the Civil War at the Battle of Carbisdale 1650 the Rosses & Munros fought on
the side of the Scottish Government, then led by the Duke of Argyll. In 1650 the Marquis
of Montrose(a Royalist) and his invading army of foreigners, mainly Germans and Danes
landed in Ross-shire. The Munros & Rosses had initially indicated that they would join
him and arranged to meet him at a specified location, he waited two days for them but the
Rosses & Munros did not turn up as they had actually taken the side of the Scottish
Government. A day later the battle took place in Scroggie Wood. The Germans and Danes
fought gallantly deeper and deeper into the wood but they were losing the battle and in
the end the need for self-preservation took over and those that were left attempted to
flee. Montrose's force of cavalry also fought bravely but were soon overwhelmed. History
records that the bloodshed in the wood continued for over two hours and even after the
battle ended, the slaughter did not cease, for the Munro & Ross clansmen of Ross-shire
continued the killing of the escpaed from the battle for many dayes thereafter.
[edit
Tartan± Said to be of Norman origin, but probably descended from Gilleon nah-airde,
ancestor of Anrias, whose descendant Fearcher MacinTagart, Earl of Ross, helped crush a
rebellion for the Crown in 1215. For his services he was knighted and recognised as Earl
of Ross in 1234.
ROSS FROM CAMDEN
Ross, so called from an old word of the Scots which some interpret as promontory, others
as peninsula; the people called Cantae, a word not dissimilar in its meaning, lived there
in the time of Ptolemy. It is spread out widely and faces the ocean on both sides; on the
Vergivian, rounded ridges and frequent woods rise up, and it abounds in stags, goats, deer
and woodland birds; on the German, it is more blessed with fields and pastures and much
more cultivated. At its very threshold the quite large region of Ardmanoch, which occurs
in the title of the second-born sons of the Kings of Scotland, climbs in high mountains,
very reliable for snow. About their height some have told me amazing things, although the
old geometricians have stated that neither the depth of the sea nor the perpendicular
height of mountains exceeds ten stades, that is 1250 paces. [Height of mountains and depth
of the sea, Plutarch, Life of Aemilius Paulus, on Olympus.] However those who have seen
Teneriffe in the Canary Islands rising to 15 leucas and sailed in the ocean near them, in
no way accept that this is true. Lovat in this area is a castle and barony of the famous
family of Frasers; as they had served the kingdom of Scotland very well, James II, it is
said, admitted them to the rank of Barons; and the most bloody race of Clan Ranald, when a
conflict began, would have totally extinguished them, if by divine fortune eighty of the
leading men of this family had not left their wives at home pregnant; they, giving birth
to the same number of male children, restored the family.
Ross family related buildings:
Arnage Castle
Arthurlie House
Auchlossan House
Balgone House
Balnagown Castle
Carscreugh Castle
Castle of King Edward
Cromarty Castle
Hawkhead Castle
Melville Castle
Pitcalnie
Pittheavlis Castle
Portencross Castle
Sanquhar Castle
Shandwick Castle
Stanely Castle
In the ancient Celtic tongue, a ros was a promontory, such as the fertile land between the
Cromarty and Dornoch Firths. Those who bore the name rose to be Earls of Ross, and it is
believed that the first Earl, Malcolm, who lived in the early twelfth century, allied his
family to O'Beolan of the great Irish royal house of Tara, by the marriage of his
daughter. The clan was sometimes also referred to as Clan Anrias, or Gille Andras,
alluding to Anrias, a distinguished O'Beolan ancestor. It has also been suggested that
another variation, 'MicGille Andras', 'son of the follower of St Andrew', derives from
one of the ancient earls who was devoted to Scotland's patron saint.
In 1214, Alexander II led his army to the north to put down the rebellion of the son of
Donald Bane, a rival claimant to the throne. He was aided by the chief of Clan Ross,
Fearchar Mac an t-Sagairt, which in English acclaimed him to be 'son of the priest,'
alluding to his O'Beolan descent from the hereditary Abbots of Applecross. Fearchar was
knighted by his king, and by 1234 he was formally recognised in the title of Earl of Ross.
The earl's son, William, received grants of land in Skye and Lewis. William's son, also
William, was abducted around 1250 during a revolt against the earl's rule, and was rescued
with help from the Munros, who were re-warded with grants of land and became closely
connected to their powerful benefactors.
The Rosses were prominent in Scottish affairs and supported an alliance with Llewellyn the
Welsh Prince, against the English. They fought at the Battle of Largs against the Norse
invasion in 1263, and spoke in Parliament of 1283 in support of settling the succession to
the throne on the infant Princess Margaret, the Maid of Norway. Young William survived to
succeed his father as chief and Earl of Ross, leading his clan through the turmoil of the
struggle to win Scotland's independence. He was one of those who swore fealty to Edward I
of England in 1296, and when he was captured at the Battle of Dunbar in the same year, he
was sent as a prisoner to London. He was later released, but again fell into the hands of
the English in 1306, when he was forced to surrender Bruce's wife and daughter, whom he
was protecting and who had taken sanctuary at the shrine of St Duthac at Tain. The king
was at first enraged, but when the earl sued for pardon he received it, and the
reconciliation was cemented by the marriage of Ross's son to the king's sister, Princess
Maud. The clan fought with distinction at Bannockburn, and the earl's seal was affixed to
the great Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. Hugh, the brother-in-law of Bruce, fell at the
Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333.
The last chief to hold the earldom was another William, who died in 1372. Euphemia, his
only daughter, claimed the earldom as Countess of Ross, but it eventually passed through
the Macdonalds of the Isles into the hands of the Crown in 1476. The chiefship devolved
upon William's younger half-brother, Hugh of Balnagowan.
The Rosses were royalists in the civil war, and David, the twelfth chief, led almost a
thousand of his clansmen against the forces of Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester
in 1651. The royalists were defeated, and Ross and many of his men were taken prisoner.
The chief was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1653, while many of his clansmen were
transported to the colonies in New England. His son, another David, succeeded to the
chiefship when he was only nine years of age.
David died, without an heir, in 1711, and the chiefship passed to his kinsman, Malcolm
Ross of Pitcalnie. The once-proud estate of Balnagowan had been terribly burdened with
debt, and was eventually purchased by General Charles Ross, brother of Lord Ross of
Hawkhead, whose family were from the Lowlands and were truly 'de Roos' of Norman descent.
As such, they were, genealogically, complete strangers to the Celtic Earls of Ross but
nevertheless managed to obtain a matriculation in the Court of the Lord Lyon of the
undifferenced arms of Ross. Pitcalnie continued to be regarded as the chief by the clan,
and he was acknowledged by the great Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who wrote in 1740 hailing
him as 'brother chief'. In the risings of 1715 and 1745 the clan as a whole avoided
Jacobite intrigues, although Malcolm, the Younger of Pitcalnie, joined the 'Old
Pretender'.
The chiefship was restored to the true line in 1903, when Miss Ross of Pitcalnie
rematriculated the undifferenced chiefly arms. The chiefship eventually passed in 1968 to
her heir, David Ross of Ross and Balnagowan, a descendant in the direct male line of Mac
an t-Sagairt, who was Earl of Ross more than seven-and-a-half centuries ago. The chief's
grandfather, Sir Ronald Ross of Shandwick, was a pioneer of modern medicine who discovered
the cause of malaria. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902.
Black Andrew
Location: Ballchraggan (Highland) - Balnagowan (or Balnagown) Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Andrew terrorised the neighbourhood, raping and murdering the locals.
They decided to act against the laird, storming his castle and hanging him by the neck
from the highest window. Now his shade remains within the walls of the building, though he
still harasses visiting women. A much more gentle shade has been seen here, a young girl
who smiles fondly at passers-by.
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