Inverness-shire

Inverness-shire stretched about 120 miles from the city of Inverness in the east, down the Great Glen to Inverlochy on the west coast, and across to the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 5 Mar. 1656. Bounded by Ross and Cromarty to the north and Argyll and Perthshire to the south, Inverness-shire formed the heart of the highland region of Scotland, and was controlled by a number of important clans, such as the Frasers, McIntoshes, Camerons, Urqhuarts, McLeods and the McDonalds of Glengarry, Clanranald and Sleat. The north west of the shire came into the area dominated by the McKenzies, headed by the earl of Seaforth. Atlas Scot. Hist. 149, 226-7. This had always been a difficult region for central governments to control, and Lochaber, in particular, was ‘one of the most endemically unsettled areas of the highlands’. D. Stevenson, Highland Warrior: Alasdair MacColla and the Civil Wars (Edinburgh, 1994), 275. During the 1640s the western parts of Inverness-shire had proved a good recruiting ground for James Graham, earl of Montrose, and Alasdair McColla had used the region as a base to raid the lowlands and to devastate the Campbell lands in Argyll and Perthshire. A similar problem faced the Cromwellian army, which lost control of most of the shire during the earl of Glencairn’s rising in 1653-4. According to George Monck*, writing in July 1654, the Camerons, McDonalds of Glengarry and the McKenzies formed ‘the stubbornest enemy we have in the hills’ and had the power ‘to overawe the rest of the clans of the country’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke l, f. 50. During the mid-1650s two heavily defended citadels were built at Inverness and Inverlochy, as ‘a means to keep the enemy from rendezvousing at those places, which were heretofore the chief places of their meeting’. Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 367-8. These were intended to hold permanent garrisons of as many as 3,000 troops in all, and the area between them was secured by smaller forts and by a pinnace (hauled overland from Inverness) which patrolled the waters of Loch Ness. Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, pp. xxxix, xliii-iv, 370. Even so, the government’s hold over the region was tenuous. In the autumn of 1655 the circuit judges were instructed not to pursue the Camerons in Lochaber for ‘things done in Montrose’s time’ for fear of fomenting ‘new troubles’, and a year later one government supporter, William McIntosh of Kellochie, was allowed to keep a guard of 24 men to protect his lands from attack. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 10 Sept. 1655; xlviii, unfol.: 4 Oct. 1656; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 140, 225.

The Edinburgh government tried to increase its hold over local affairs by introducing radical changes to the civil government in Inverness-shire. The most far-reaching of these was a scheme to break up the shire into smaller units. This was first suggested by the inhabitants of the shire themselves, in a list of ‘desires’ sent to Robert Lilburne* in July 1653 in response to a difficulty in collecting the assessments in outlying areas, and in July 1655 a similar request was made by the military governor of Inverlochy. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlv, unfol.: 26 July 1653; xlvii, unfol.: 28 July 1655. In February 1656 the Scottish council put forward a proposal to divide Inverness-shire and Argyll into five separate counties, and by the end of the decade this had been implemented in part, with the governor of Inverlochy acquiring his own area of jurisdiction, including the volatile regions of Lochaber and Glencoe. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 182; Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, p. xliii; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 10 May 1656. By this time other measures were in place to facilitate local government: by August 1654 the pro-Cromwellian landowner Sir James McDonald of Sleat had been appointed ‘sheriff’ and commissary of Lewis, Long Island and Skye; in May 1655 first John McLeod of Drynagh and then Alexander McKenzie were made collectors of Skye, Harris and other islands deemed to ‘lie so remote from the collector of the shire of Inverness, wherein they are, that he cannot conveniently collect the cess’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlv, unfol.: 15 Aug. 1654; xlvii, unfol.: 30 May 1655. From 1656 the shire JPs were led by the master of Lovat and senior members of the Fraser, McIntosh and McKenzie clans, and later assessment commissions (in 1657 and 1660) had a similar line-up. NRS, JC26/23, unmarked bundle; JC26/25, ‘Bundle 1’; A. and O. This attempt to impose government structures on Inverness-shire was hampered by local feuds. In November 1656 the local commander, Major Hills, was instructed not to allow the lairds to evaluate the assessment in the highlands and islands, but to ‘take some gentlemen of the neighbouring shires to assist him in determining that business’; and in May 1658 there were complaints against the assessment commissioners for victimising the Captain of Clanrannald and others, who ‘had been over-valued, and some of them assessed where they have not a foot of land’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlviii, unfol.: 15 Nov. 1656, 31 May 1658.

Like many shires, Inverness had not been represented in the Scottish Parliament before 1603, and its first recorded return of commissioners was not until 1617. Before that, the shire interest was deemed to be vested in the nobility and other tenants-in-chief of the crown, who received personal summonses to attend the king at Edinburgh. C.S. Terry, The Scottish Parliament (Glasgow, 1905), 20-1. Between 1617 and 1651 the commissioners for Inverness-shire were drawn from the dominant clans. Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 264-6, ii. 457, 460, 464. When deputies were chosen to ‘negotiate’ a union with the English Parliament in March 1652, the ‘heretors and rentallors’ of the shire nominated Kenneth McKenzie of Coull and Alexander McIntosh of Connedge to represent them. Cromwellian Union, ed. Terry, 136-7, 159-60. Yet the involvement of the gentry in these early initiatives, and their later encouragement in the local administration, did not automatically lead to their involvement in parliamentary elections. The shire elections were held in the heavily fortified city of Inverness, and in 1654 the governor, Thomas Fitch, faced with organising an election in the midst of the Glencairn rising, seems to have arranged for the return of his colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel William Michell, without wider consultation. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 197; A. and O. The political situation had eased somewhat by 13 August 1656, when the next election was held, with the sheriff, Kenneth McKenzie of Coull, presiding, and nine local landowners signing the indenture. Although the electors included Frasers, McIntoshes and McKenzies, they were something of a mixed bag, with major figures such as Colin McKenzie of Redcastle and Donald McIntosh fiar of Kellachie rubbing shoulders with lesser men, and there were notable absentees, including the master of Lovat. C219/45, unfol. Despite the apparent lack of military involvement in the electoral process, pressure may well have been exerted behind the scenes, as the return of Colonel Fitch as MP suggests. In 1659 Fitch was again elected for the seat. After the Restoration the shire returned to its traditional rulers, and in the Scottish Parliament of 1661 the shire once again returned two commissioners from the local clans: Sir John Urqhuart of Cromarty and Colin McKenzie of Redcastle. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 458, 705-6.