The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

250 THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii
with an heiress of the Macleans, from the rest, led many of
them to follow the Macneills of Gigha, and made the latter
famil)' almost independent.
Anns.
Quarterly. First— .Azure, a lion rampant argent. Second— Or, a hand
coupee, fessways, gules, holding a cross, crosslet, fitchee, in pale azure.
Third— Or, a lymphad sable. Fourth— Parted per fess, argent and
vert, to represent the sea, out of which issueth a rock, gules.
Badoe.
Sea Ware.
Principal Seat.
Knapdale, afterwards Barra.
Oldest Cadet.
Macneill of Gigha.
Chief.
Macneill of Barra.
Clan Lachlan.
The Maclachlans are traced, by the manuscript of 1450, to
Gilchrist, the son of Dedaalan, who was son of that Anradan
from whom all the clans of this tribe are descended, and besides
the \\\'^\ authorit}- which this genealogy derives from the
circumstance that there is every reason to think that the author
of the manuscript was a Alaclachlan, it is farther confirmed
by the fact that at the period at which the manuscript mentions
a Gillepadrig Mac Gilchrist as one of the chiefs of the clan,
we find in the Paisley chartulary a charter by " Laumanus
filius Malcolmi," the ancestor of the Lamonts, witnessed by
Gillpatrick filius Gillchrist. Universal tradition asserts that
the}- acquired these lands in Cowall by marriage with an heiress
of the Lamonds, and the manuscript apparently indicates the
same fact, for it states that this Gilchrist married the daughter
of Lachlan Mac Rory, while Lachlan Mac Rory is exactly
cotemporarx- with Angus Mac Ror\-, lord of Cowall, chief of
the Lamonds. Their original seat appears to have been in
Lochaber, where a ver\- old branch of the family has from
the earliest period been settled as native men of the Camerons.
]^ut as this clan soon after their acquisitions in Cowall became
dependent upon the Campbells, we are unable to furnish any