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Hi All
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Here
is part two of The Roll article -
"The District of Mull, however, shows greater differences between
the past and the present than any of its companion areas. At present the
District of Mull is made up of mountainous Mull itself, with its insular
satellites of , Ulva, Gometra, Staffa and scores of Islets the names of which
have passed into popular disuse if not entirely from the memories of moderns as
well as its larger neighbors Coll and Tiree. When the Valuation Roll of
1751 was prepared, Mull District not only included its present components but
also the adjoining mainland regions of Ardnamurchan, Morvern, Sunart and Ardgour
and stretched into the County of Inverness in the neighborhood of
Kilmallie.
The
various Districts were still overwhelmingly Highland and the numerous landowners
were with few exceptions of Highland descent and birth. An analysis of the
number of Lairds, great and small alike, affords a striking result and shows the
completeness of the Campbell domination of Argyll two centuries ago when the
Campbell proprietors from the powerful contemporary Duke to the the more humble
"farmer-laird" were not fewer than one hundred and fourteen.
Next came the clan MacLean with a mere dozen, followed by the Stewarts with
nine, while the MacDonalds and Camerons were far in the rear, each with a meagre
five. The vicissitudes of fortune during the two intervening centuries
between then and now have wrought startling changes in the landownership of
Argyll, and the Campbell Lairds of our times do not make up a quarter of the
number of their Clansmen who were apparently in immovable tenure in
1751.
The
bulky Roll provides texts innumerable for the lover of the historical past as
well as for the moralist in search of evidence to illustrate the vanity and
ephemeral nature of human possessions.
When
the Roll was compiled, Colin Campbell of Glenure and James Stewart of the Glens
were both alive and both figure in its pages. The cruel murder of Campbell
lay in the unknown future. Although the manner of his death may arouse
sympathy for his sudden cutting -off, he was a man of disagreeable and immoral
character and relentless in enforcing the letter of the law against forfeited
Jacobites paying a heavy price for their loyalty to a losing cause. James
Stewart for his part was still living in freedom in the Glens of Appin, with
little anticipation that he would have to face an unfriendly jury in Inveraray
in less than two years.
The
Campbells of Auchinbreck, who took their title from an Auchinbreck in Cowal and
not in Mid-Argyll, were then mighty in the land and endowed with great financial
resources. This family had played a leading part in inter-Clan
warfare and its head had probably been the main military instrument in the
overthrow of the MacDonalds of Kintyre and Islay in the second decade of the
seventeenth century, when Sir James MacDonald of Knockrinsay made his final
effort to restore the toppling fortunes of the MacDonald House of Iain
Mhor. Fate or nemesis, as it may be, not long after overtook this powerful
family and an advertisement appeared on 13th September, 1760, in the Caledonian
Mercury, Intimating that the whole lands and estate which had belonged to the
deceased Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck, were to be sold.
Contrary to much popular opinion, the MacDonalds of Glencoe were by no
means exterminated by the Massacre of 1692, which has been overpublicised by
Macaulay in his unique History, and John MacDonald of Glencoe appears in the
Roll of 1751 as the possessor of his ancestral lands.
One
particularly notable entry occurs in he record dealing with the Island of
Lismore and refers to "the half-croft of Bachil the property of Duncan
MacInlea." This recalls memories of St. Moluag, whose crosier or
pastoral staff came into the hereditary custody of the MacInleas or the
Livingstones as they were termed somewhat inexactly in English. As long
ago as 1544 Archibald Campbell, afterwards fifth Earl of Argyll, made a grant of
land with the consent of his father Archibald "Roy", the fourth Earl,
to John McMolmore VicKevir", his standard-bearer, together with the keeping
of the"great staff of Saint Moloc" as freely as John's father,
grandfather, great=grandfather and other predecessors had held of the granter's
predecessors. This historic and venerable staff came into the possession
of one of the Dukes of Argyll in the nineteenth century, but to the great
satisfaction of all Gaels it has been restored to the modern representative of
the Baron na Bachaill by the present Duke Ian, eleventh of
Argyll.
So
much meantime for Geography and History. What of finance, for a Valuation
Roll should surely have dealt with pounds, Shillings and pence, whether Scots or
Sterling? It did in fact, but here the greatest circumspection and the
utmost caution are essential, for mere figures can be very misleading if taken
out of their proper context and proper century, and the modest looking total of
#12,466 5s 10d for 1751 seems to compare very poorly with the County's Valuation
of #512,376 5s for 1952-1953, but he men and women of Argyll in 1751, we need
not doubt, had plenty to eat and drink and were at any rate free from the twin
evils that afflict their descendants - a ballooning currency and a vampirish
income tax."
That's
it.
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