Sutherland Etc.

The three shires of Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty formed a large part of northern Scotland, from the burgh of Cromarty on the Moray Firth to the east to Gairloch on the west coast, and north, through a region of high mountains and deep glens, to the exposed cliffs of Cape Wrath. The shire of Ross also included the Hebridean island of Lewis, to the north west. Traditionally, the area had been dominated by a handful of clans, including the McKenzies (under the earl of Seaforth) to the west and the Rosses and Munros to the east, with the north being shared by the McKays (led by Lord Reay), the McCleods of Assynt and the ‘Sutherland men’: the Grays, Sutherlands and Gordon earls of Sutherland. A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (East Linton, 1996), 242-7. The inhospitable terrain and the influence of the clans meant that Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty were slow to be incorporated into the Scottish administration. Sutherland had been a private fiefdom of the earls of Sutherland until 1633, when it became a sheriffdom entitled to return members to the Scottish Parliament; Ross, which had been part of Invernessshire until 1503, did not have separate representation until 1649 and was not established as an autonomous shire until the 1660s; and Cromarty would have to wait for parliamentary representation until 1661. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 771, 798, 800; Macinnes, Clanship, 47-9. This confusion allowed the covenanting 14th earl of Sutherland to extend his control over much of the region during the 1640s, and the commissioners chosen to attend the Edinburgh Parliament in this period were drawn from his allies among the local clans – the Grays, Sutherlands, Gordons and Munros. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 798-800.

The earl of Sutherland retained much of his local power throughout the commonwealth and protectorate. Although he had fought against the Cromwellian invasion in 1650-1, the earl quickly submitted to the English after the battle of Worcester, bringing with him the Gordons and other clans, and neutralising resistance in Ross and Sutherland, which fell to Colonel Thomas Fitch* and his men with remarkable speed in November and December 1651. F. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 18-19, 65. The English major-general, Robert Lilburne*, thought the earl of Sutherland very amicable when he visited him in 1652, ‘and found very much civility and religion in the family’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke l, f. 30. Acquiescence is also suggested by the readiness of Sutherland and Ross to return deputies to engage with Parliament in March and April 1652. The two deputies chosen were in fact their commissioners from the Scottish Parliament of 1649-50: Sir Robert Gordon of Embo (for Sutherland) and Sir Robert Munro of Foulis (for Ross). Cromwellian Union, ed. Terry, 129-130, 145, 168, 178. It is significant that Sutherland, in particular, refused to join the royalist rising organised by the earl of Glencairn (and later, Lord Middleton) in 1653-4, and that the shire, which became the rebels’ headquarters, was devastated as a result. Of the local chiefs, only Lord Reay joined the rebels, while Sutherland, Duffus and McLeod of Assynt all sided with the government. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 2 Oct. 1654, 26 Oct. 1654, 26 Jan. 1655, 8 Mar. 1655.

The Edinburgh government was very sympathetic to petitions from the local gentry asking for reductions in the assessment over the next few years, and the earl of Sutherland himself was recommended for special treatment by Lilburne in April 1654, as ‘[he] is driven out of his country with his sons, and Middleton hath turned his lady out of doors and sent her after him, and his lands and estate is exceedingly wasted by Middleton and his accomplices’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke l, ff. 20, 30; xliii, ff. 34v, 35v, 40. Lilburne also recommended that Sutherland’s son and heir, Lord Strathnaver, should be brought to England, and ‘by receiving some breeding under your highness amongst the English it would in time get us a good interest here’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke l, f. 30. Moves to bolster Strathnaver’s position nationally and locally soon followed. In June 1656 he was made keeper of the Scottish privy seal, and in September of that year he was given charge of a local initiative to receive weapons surrendered by his neighbours in the north and commissioned ‘for keeping of courts in the hills and other parts of Sutherland’. CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 364; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlviii, unfol.: 17 Sept. 1656.

Good relations between the earl and the English government ensured that the local administration remained in local hands. The military presence was very light, with Colonel Fitch supervising security from the citadel at distant Inverness, while small numbers of troops occupied key fortresses such as Cromarty Castle, as a precautionary measure. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, f. 66; xlvii, unfol.: 12 Mar. 1656. As early as the summer of 1653 the regulation of the assessments in Sutherland had been assigned to the earl and the gentlemen of the shire, while Sir Robert Munro of Foulis served as collector for Ross and Cromarty. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, ff. 12, 26. When sheriffs were chosen by the Scottish council in March 1656, the laird of Foulis was selected for Ross while Lord Strathnaver took over Sutherland. Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 316-7. The justices of the peace appointed for Sutherland at about the same time were almost entirely local landowners, including the earl of Sutherland, Lord Strathnaver, Foulis, Embo and Arkboll and other leading ‘Sutherland men’; and the active members of the bench, as indicated by a signed certificate of August 1656, included Arkboll and Patrick Dunbar of Sidra. Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 316; NRS, JC26/17, unfol. The assessment commissions appointed in June 1657 and January 1660 were again dominated by the clan leaders: that for Cromarty included Sir Ludovic Gordon and Robert Lesley of Finrassie; among the Ross commissioners were the lairds of Arkboll, Foulis and Finrassie; and Sutherland saw Embo, Foulis, Arkboll and Sidra appointed alongside the earl of Sutherland and Lord Strathnaver. A. and O.

The Cromwellian regime had followed a policy of keeping the traditional families in charge of local government throughout the 1650s; and as a quid pro quo, when it came to parliamentary elections the clans ensured that government nominees were returned for the shires. In 1654 no return could be made, as the region was still either occupied by Glencairn and Middleton or reeling from the effects of the rebellion. In August 1656, however, the landowners met at Ross, and the laird of Foulis, as sheriff, conducted the election. The indenture, with its appended signatures, makes it clear that this was an event which involved only native Scots, many of whom were ‘Sutherland men’. The earl of Sutherland and Lord Strathnaver headed a list of around 20 names which also included Sir George McKenzie of Tarbat, Patrick Dunbar of Sidra, Robert Gray of Arkboll, two members of the Sutherland clan, and the provost of Dornoch, Thomas Manson. C219/45, unfol. It is significant that these men elected not one of their own number, but Dr Thomas Clarges, brother-in-law of the English commander-in-chief, George Monck*. The indenture for the 1659 election does not survive, but the meeting may have been very similar: the result certainly was. Instead of Clarges, the shires elected Monck’s protégé, and major of his regiment of horse, Ralph Knight. In both elections the electors of Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty appear to have responded to the leniency of the English government, and above all the favour shown to the leading nobleman, the earl of Sutherland, by soliciting an even closer relationship with the regime. Once the protectorate had gone, and Charles II had been restored, the elections for the Scottish Parliament of 1661 once again returned local men – including Cromwellian collaborators such as Sir Robert Gordon of Embo and Sir George McKenzie of Tarbat – but this was more a continuation of, rather than a return to, normality. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 798-800.