Clan Mackenzie

The Mackenzies emerged in Kintail on the west coast and are held to descend from Gilleoin of the Aird, a Gaelic dynast of the early twelfth century. Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail, who died after 1471, is the first securely recorded chief.

From Eilean Donan Castle the family expanded across Ross-shire, and by the seventeenth century their lands ran from the Black Isle in the east to the Outer Hebrides in the west, with seats at Brahan Castle and Castle Leod. Chiefs bear the Gaelic style Cabarfeidh, “deer’s antlers”, from the stag in their arms. George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, joined the 1745 rising and was captured and forfeited.

The Mackenzie tartan

The tartan’s history is military. The Clan Mackenzie Society states that the sett grew out of an early Black Watch pattern with black, white and red lines added, worn by Lord MacLeod’s 73rd Highlanders and continued by the Seaforth Highlanders.

Kenneth Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth, raised the 78th Highlanders at Elgin in January 1778, renumbered 72nd in 1786; Francis Humberston Mackenzie raised a second 78th, the Ross-shire Buffs, in 1793. A certified specimen signed by Mackenzie of Seaforth and dated 1816 survives in the Highland Society of London’s collection, and Wilsons of Bannockburn’s 1819 pattern book records the cloth in various widths and weights. That gives the Mackenzie sett an unusually solid paper trail.

A note on honesty: the clan society describes a possible earlier, predominantly red Mackenzie tartan only as something that may have existed. It is not documented and should not be presented as fact.

Clan facts

References

1. Mackenzie tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Tartans — Clan Mackenzie Society
3. The Seaforth Mackenzie Tartan of 1816 — Clan Mackenzie Initiative
4. 78th Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs) — National Army Museum