history of the
family by the late Captain John Matheson of Bennetsfield: "We must
observe here the rapid advance which the family of Kintail made on
every side. The turbulent Macdonalds, crushed by the affair of Park,
Munro, sustained by his own clan, and the neighbouring vassals of
Ross humbled at their own door, when a century had not yet passed
since the name of Mackenzie had become familiar to their ears; and it
is gratifying to trace all this to the wise policy of the first James
and his successors. The judicious education of Alastair Ionraic, and
consequent cultivation of those habits which, by identifying the
people with the monarch through the laws, render a nation securely
great, is equally discernible in John of Killin and his posterity.
The successors of the Earls of Ross were turbulent and tenacious of
their rights, but they were irreclaimable. The youthful Lord of the
Isles, at the instigation of his haughty mother, deserted the Court
of James I., while young Kintail remained, sedulously improving
himself at school in Perth, till he was called to display his
gratitude to his Royal master in counteracting the evil arising from
the opposite conduct of Macdonald.
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