Mary MacRae

Mary, the sister of Janet, above, married Murdoch of Morvich, grandson of Alexander of Inverinate, and they were the parents of John Macrae, the famous Kintail poet. Tradition says that Mary’s husband Murdoch was hanged by the Duke of Cumberland, as a spy from the Pretender, although he was completely innocent. He was just simply seized and hanged without a trial, at the instigation of Macleod of Assynt, who held a grudge against him. (The Duke of Cumberland was a son of George II and he commanded the English Army at Culloden 1746. After the battle the wounded and helpless were killed in cold blood and the epithet “Butcher” clung to him for the rest of his life.) This horrible and unwarranted outrage made a deep impression in Inverness where Murdoch of Morvich was known as “a man of fame and reputation” who enjoyed the esteem of men of rank and worth, and where it was known that he never deserted his king or his country. This cruel and unjustifiable act must have caused great sorrow to the family of Janet. Their son John Macrae the Gaelic poet, was very celebrated and his songs are still well known in Kintail and Lochalsh. These songs are of very high poetical merit, and this together with the strong and effective local colouring they possessed, helps to account for the deep and lasting impression which the poet made on his countrymen, and the prominent place which his name occupies among the traditions of Kintail. He decided to go to America and on the day of his departure many of his friends accompanied him to the Heights of Auchtertyre in Lochalsh and the spot is still pointed out where he took farewell of them. The War of Independence broke out in America and he cast in his lot with the loyalists, whose cause soon became the losing one, and after sharing in the hardships and defeats of the British Armies, he at last perished a fugitive among the Primeval Kintail, in which he expresses with much beauty and pathos the yearning of his soul to return to the scenes and the friends of happier days.