The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OF SCOTLAND 325
Balnagovvan, collected forthwith all the men he could, and met
the invader at a place called Aldycharrich. A battle followed,
which was contested with unusual fierceness and obstinacy,
until at length the Rosses were totally routed, and their chief,
together with seventeen landed proprietors of the county of
Ross, were slain. The Rosses do not appear ever to have
recovered the great slaughter which took place upon this
occasion, and they remained afterwards a clan of no great
strength, until at length the family became extinct in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, in the person of David, the
last of the old Rosses of Balnagovvan, who, finding that in con-
sequence of the entail of Balnagovvan ending with himself, he
was enabled to sell the estate, disposed of it to General Ross,
brother of lord Ross of Hawkhead, from whom the late Rosses
of Balnagovvan are descended, thus occasioning the somewhat
curious coincidence of the estates being purchased by a family
of the same name though of very different origin.
Arins.
Oldest coat— Sa. on a chev. ar. a lion rampant, or, between two torteauxes.
Bad^e.
The uva ursi plant.
Principal Seat.
Balnagowan.
Chief.
Ross Munro, of Pitcalnie, now represents this family.
Force.
In 1427, 2000. In 1704 and 1715,300. In 1745, 50°'
Claii Kenneth.
The Mackenzies have long boasted of their descent from the
great Norman family of Fitzgerald in Ireland, and in support
of this origin they produce a fragment of the records of Icolm-
kill, and a charter by Alexander III. to Colin Fitzgerald, the
of the lands of Kintail. At
supposed progenitor of the family,
first sight these documents might appear conclusive, but, inde-
pendently of the somewhat suspicious circumstance, that while
these papers have been most freely and generally quoted, no
one has ever yet declared that he has seen the originals, the