!BIOGRAPHY: George Crawfurd, Esq., THE PEERAGE OF SCOTLAND,
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1716, pp. 87, 88.
This noble Lord in the 1654 obtained a Commission from King Charles
II. during his Exile, to raise what Forces he could for his Majesty''s
Service, in order to his Restauration, and therewhith joined Lieutenant
General John Middleton, who sustained a War with the English for a
whole Year, till they were defeated by Colonel Morgan; then his Lordship
capitulated with the Enemy upon very honourable Terms. This signal
Appearance for his distressed Sovereign, probably seem one Cause that
upon his Majesty''s Restauration, when he constituted a new Set of
Judges in the 1661, he named him one of the Senators of the College of
Justice, and one of the Lord''s of his Privy Council. Anno 1678, he was
constituted Justice General upon the decease of Sir Archibald Primrose,
and three Years thereafter he was made Lord Clerk Register, in which
Station he continued till the Death of King Charles II, Anno 1685.
King James VII. had no less Value for his Abilities, for in the first Year
of his Reign, he renewed his Patent for being Register, and on the 15th of
April the same Year, created him Viscount of Tarbat, Lord Macleod and
Castlehaven, and continued him in the Imployment till the Dissolution of
the Government in 1689.
In the 3d of William and Mary, Anno 1692, he was again restored to the
Registers Office: Then it was he put forth a vindication of King Robert
III. from the Imputation of Bastardy, an Error all our Historians of
former Times, either maliciously or ignorantly had fallen into; and from
the national Archives clearly evinced, that Elisabeth More was the first
and lawful Wife of King Robert II, when Earl of Strathern; that she was
long dead before he came to the Crown; that Robert III. her Son, was not
only owned as the eldest lawful Son of his Father in all publick Deeds,
after he became King, but also in the time of King David Bruce his
Grand-Uncle.
In 1702 the first of Queen Anne he was constituted Secretary of State,
and the first of January the next Year raised to the Honour of Earl of
Cromarty, his Age making the Fatigue of the Secretarie''s Place uneasie
to him, he demitted, and in Lieu thereof, her Majesty was pleased to give
him an Imployment of a much easier Nature, making him Justice General,
which he resigned to the Earl of Ilay, Anno 1710. He married first Anne
Daughter of Sir James Sinclair of May, by whom he had Issue,
1st. John Lord Mackleod.
2d. Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Cromarty, Baronet.
3d. Sir James of Roystoun created Baronet, 8 February 1704, and
promoted to be one of the Senators of the College of Justice, in 1710.
Also four Daughters, Margaret, married to David Bruce of Clackannan,
Elisabeth to Sir George Brown of Colstoun, Jean to Sir Thomas Steuart of
Balcasky, and Lady Anne.
He married next Margaret Countess Dowager of Weems, but by her he
had no issue, and became a widower by her Death, in 1705.
!ARMS: Four Coats quarterly, 1st Or, a Mountain in a flame Azure and
Gules, 2d Azure a Dears Head coboss''d Or, 3d Argent ona a Pale Sable, an
imperial Crown Or, within a double Tressure, counter-flour''d Gules, 4
Gules, 3 Legs armed proper, conjoined in Fess at the upper part of the
Thigh, flex''d in a Triangle, garnished and spur''d Or, and supported by two
Savages proper, Crest, the Sun in his Splendor, Motto, Luceo non uro.
!BIOGRAPHY: Rev. Dr. Donald MacKinnon, and Alick Morrison, MACLEOD
CHIEFS OF HARRIS AND DUNVEGAN, Edinburgh, The Clan MacLeod Society,
1969, p. 26.