The Scottish Clans

Gaelic Name: Loganaich or Macgill’innein
Motto: Hoc majorum virtus (This isthe valour of my ancestors)
Badge: Furze
Lands: Lothian Berwickshire, Easter Ross
Origin of Name: Placename, Lothians

History
The Logan name is found to have been used by two distinct families, one in the Highlands and one in the Lowlands. Translated into Gaelic and back again the ‘Logans of the North’ became ‘Siol Ghilli’nnein’ which becomes MacClennan.

These Northern Logans are said to have been the descendants of the Logans of Druimdeurfait, in Easter Ross. Their Chief was Gilligorm and he was killed battling with the Frasers at Kessock. His widow was pregnant when she was dragged off by the Frasers. When her son was born they broke his back to prevent him growing to be a warrior.

His name was Crotair Mac Gilligorm.

He became a monk of the Celtic church where it was permitted to take a wife. He founded the Churches of Kilmuir in Skye and Kilchrinin in Glenelg. His son was named Gille Fhinnein and the MacClennan line carried on from there, it is told.

For certain the MacClennans expanded into great numbers in Kintail, in Ross-shire. Donald MacClennan was a famous warrior, important in the great feud between his Kintail and Glengarry in around 1600.

In 1645 Donald, Roderick his brother and many other MacClennans died heroically defending the Standard of the MacKenzies of Seaforth during the Battle of Auldearn, part of the Montrose wars.

A wooden effigy of Gilligorm survived until the Jacobite rising of 1715.

In the south Restalrig, near Edinburgh, was home to the Logans. Of the southern Logans the most famous were Sir Walter and Sir Robert. The heart of King Robert the Bruce was to be buried in the Holy Lands and they accompanied Good Sir James Douglas in 1329 on this mission. They were all killed in Spain before achieving their task.

Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig married Bruce’s great grand-daughter and became the Admiral of Scotland in 1400. The Logans of Restalrig were eventually outlawed and disbanded but Logans have still done well in Lothian.

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Gaelic Name: Mac an Léigh
Motto: Se je puis (If I can)
Lands: West Lothian, Trossachs, Lorn
Origin of Name: Placename, Linlithgow

History
Legend says that a Saxon called Leving gave his name to the lands in West Lothian and they became Livingston. The people of the area took this as their family name.

Four generations on Sir William Livingston of Livingston fought beside King David II at the Battle of Durham in the 1346 attack into England. When both he and the King were captured he helped negotiate his King’s release and for this was granted the barony of Callendar in 1347.

In 1440 the Livingstons of Callendar persuaded the young Earl of Douglas and his brother to come and reconcile the two families’ differences at a banquet for that purpose in Edinburgh Castle. Upon their arrival, however, the brothers were taken and slain. The Douglases avenged their loss by imprisoning Sir Alexander Livingston and executing one of his sons.

The 5th Lord Livingston, Alexander, was chosen in 1543 to help tutor the child Mary, Queen of Scots. When she went to France he went with her and died there.

His own daughter Mary was one of the loved ‘Four Marys’. Alexander’s son William became the 6th Lord and fought passionately for his father’s ex-pupil at the Battle of Langside, an area now within Southern Glasgow. He died in 1592.

The estates and titles of the Livingstons suffered badly during the Jacobite rising of 1715 because of their patriotism.

Carrying an ‘e’ at the end, the ‘Highland Livingstones’ have been quite independent of the original line.

A physician named Ferchar Leighiche was one of a famous family attending to the health of the Lords of the Isles. He acquired land in Assynt in 1386. His descendants were called Macleay (from the Gaelic Mac-an-leigh, son of the physician).

When James Livingston was given a grant of the lands of Bachuil by Charles I in 1641 he moved into Achanduin Castle and the Macleays there changed their name to Livingstone. Why they added the ‘e’ and whether they were happy to change their names is not certain.

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Gaelic Name: MacGhille Fhionntaig
Motto: Endure forte (Suffer bravely)
Badge: Rue
Lands: Borders, Angus
Origin of Name: Placename, probably Norman

History
Between the 6th and 9th centuries, Danes lived in one of the little kingdoms of Lincolnshire in England to which, after the Norman Conquest, Baldric of Lindsay came to be tenant of the manors under the Earl of Chester.

The Lindsay name was already well known across England at this time. In 1120 Sir Walter Lindsay was a member of the council of David, Earl of Huntingdon in England, who became King of Scots in 1124. Sir Walter’s successor, either his son or brother William, came to Scotland with the new King.

William Lindsay acquired Crawford in Lanarkshire and gave some of his Ayrshire land to Dryburgh Abbey.

In the following century Sir David Lindsay of Crawford and the Byres supported St Louis, King of France, on a crusade. He died in Egypt. By then the family had expanded prosperously on both sides of the border and the war of independence brought them great dilemmas.

One of the Crusader’s sons, Sir Alexander, was a Knight of Edward I of England. Nonetheless, his Scottish patriotism made him a supporter of Bruce and friend of Wallace. His English property was forfeited and his sons were imprisoned. The eldest of these sons, Sir David, was later among the signatories of the ‘Declaration Of Arbroath’, the 1320 assertion of Scottish independence.

A loss of Lindsay land in Scotland resulted from long time feuding with the Ogilvies when the 4th Earl of Crawford, Alexander, known both as the ‘Tiger Earl’ and ‘Earl Beardie’ was badly defeated at Brechin in 1452.

Another Alexander, son of the 8th Earl, was known as ‘The Wicked Master’ and had his land, position and inheritance removed after being convicted of trying to murder his father.

In the numerous struggles to retain a Scottish Crown the Lindsays have been active all through British history.

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Gaelic Name: Mac an Fheisdeir
Motto: Grip fast
Badge: Rue
Lands: Aberdeenshire
Origin of Name: Placename, Aberdeenshire

History
The family name comes from the Leslie lands of Aberdeenshire and was to become famous in Germany, Poland, France and Russia. A Flemish noble named Bartholf settled in this area and in the 12th century one of his sons obtained a charter for the Barony of Lesly from William the Lion.

Sir Andrew de Lesly was one of the signatories when a letter, the Declaration of Arbroath, was sent to the Pope in 1320 asserting Scotland’s independence. When his son Walter died before gaining a son of his own the Battle of Harlaw resulted in 1411.

George de Lesly was the Leslys’ first Earl. His grandson, the 2nd Earl was killed at Flodden and the third Earl, also George, carried out a private family vendetta on the life of David Beaton, cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews. At the trial he was acquitted.

General Alexander Leslie of Balgonie fought for Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden. He achieved great fame across Europe for his skills in war and returned to Scotland a Field Marshal. Commanding the Covenanters he captured Edinburgh Castle with a thousand men. With the Scots army he went into England in 1640 and defeated the King’s soldiers at Newburn. For this he was created Earl of Lewis by Charles I.

Even so, the most highly respected Leslie is said to be John Leslie, the Bishop of Ross, who was born in 1526. He was the most loyal of Mary, Queen of Scots’ supporters. It was John Leslie who wrote for her the famous ‘History of Scotland’.

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Motto:
Origin of Tartan:

History
There a couple of theories as to the origin of this name; one is from the Anglo-Saxon ‘lisse’ which means ‘happy’, another is that it comes from the Norse for ‘stirring fellow’, and yet another recent suggestion has been that it comes from Liscus, chief of the Haedui, a tribe of Gauls described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars Also the Castle of Boulogne, once the possession of Charlemagne, at one time belonged to a family called de Lesque.

William de Laskereske’s signature appears on the Ragman Roll in 1296 and later in 1345 William Leask was granted lands of Leskgoroune by David II, the son of Robert the Bruce.

The second chief was baillie of the barony of Findon. He inherited lands from Henry de Brogan, Lord of Achlowne, in 1390, later in the 1400′s another branch of the family sprung up on Orkney after Jamis of Lask, younger son of Thomas de Lask of that Ilk settled there.

In 1513 the Line of Leask Chiefs suffered a double tragedy when both William Lask of that Ilk, 5th Chief, and his son, Alexander Lask of that Ilk, Younger, dsp, were both killed at the Battle of Flodden; the latter’s younger brother, William Lask, Burgess of Aberdeen, then became the 6th Leask Chief.

William Lesk of that Ilk, the seventh chief supported the infant James VI in opposition to his mother Mary Queen of Scots after the murder of Lord Darnley and her scandalous marriage to Bothwell.

Between 1615 and 1616 there appears to have been a disagreement of some sort between the Leasks and the neighboring Gordons. In all the recorded cases the Gordons appear to have been the aggressors; Adam Gordon, brother of the Laird of Gight assaulted Alexander Leask, then the son of the chief was attacked by George Gordon and finally William Leask of that Ilk was ambushed by John Gordon of Ardlogy and a party of armed men.

In the seventeenth century the Leasks suffered terribly by investing heavily in the Darien Venture. The venture was a disaster with a vast amount of Scotland’s wealth being lost which in some part led to the union of Scotland and England Alexander Leask of that Ilk, the thirteenth chief was forced to give up his estates which were taken over by Robert Cumming.

There are few family records until the latter half of the nineteenth century. Finally in 1963 some of the estates were bought back and the Leask society established with the assistance of well known Leasks such as Lieutenant General Sir Henry Leask, General Officer commanding the Army in Scotland.

Finally in 1968 the Lord Lyon recognised the present chief.

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