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The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

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CHAP. VIII] O F S C O T L A N D 345<br />

<strong>Clan</strong> Quarrie.<br />

<strong>The</strong> IMacquarries first appear in possession <strong>of</strong> the island<br />

<strong>of</strong> Ulva and part <strong>of</strong> Mull, and like the Mackinnons, their<br />

situation forced them, at a very early period, to become<br />

dependent upon the Macdonalds. But their descent from the<br />

clan Alpine, which has constantly been asserted by tradition,<br />

is established by the manuscript 1450, which deduces their<br />

origin from Guaire or Godfrey, a brother <strong>of</strong> Fingon, ancestor<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Mackinnons, and Anrias or Andrew, ancestor <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Macgregors. <strong>The</strong> history <strong>of</strong> the Macquarries resembles that<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Mackinnons in many respects ; like them they had<br />

migrated far from the headquarters <strong>of</strong> their race, they became<br />

dependent upon the lords <strong>of</strong> the Isles, and followed them as<br />

if they had been a branch <strong>of</strong> the clan.<br />

On the forfeiture <strong>of</strong> the last lord <strong>of</strong> the Isles, they became,<br />

like the Mackinnons, in a manner independent, and although<br />

surrounded by various powerful clans, they maintained their<br />

station, which was that <strong>of</strong> a minor clan, without apparently<br />

undergoing any alteration ; and survived many <strong>of</strong> the revolutions<br />

<strong>of</strong> fortune to which the greater clans were exposed in<br />

the same station, bearing among the other clans the character<br />

<strong>of</strong> great antiquity, and <strong>of</strong> having once been greater than they<br />

now were.<br />

<strong>Clan</strong> Aula.<br />

<strong>The</strong> Macaulays, <strong>of</strong> Ardincaple, have for a long period been<br />

considered as deriving their origin from the ancient earls <strong>of</strong><br />

Lennox, and it has generally been assumed, without investiga-<br />

tion, that their ancestor was Aulay, son <strong>of</strong> Aulay, who appears<br />

in Ragman Roll, and whose father, Aulay, was brother <strong>of</strong><br />

Maldowan, earl <strong>of</strong> Lennox. Plausible as this derivation may<br />

appear, there are yet two circumstances which render it<br />

impossible, and establish the derivation <strong>of</strong> the clan to have<br />

been very different.<br />

In the first place, it is now ascertained that these Aulays<br />

were <strong>of</strong> the family <strong>of</strong> de Fasselane, who afterwards succeeded<br />

to the earldom, and among the numerous deeds relating to<br />

this family in the Lennox chartulary, there is no mention <strong>of</strong><br />

any other son <strong>of</strong> Aulay's than Duncan de Fasselane, who

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