THE HISTORY OF THE CLAN SUTHERLAND
(Photo by Jean F. Sutherland, Glasgow)
The county of Sutherland is one of the two most northernmost counties in mainland Britain, Caithness being the other. The name derives from the Norse Sudrland, that is land to the south of the Norse earldom of Orkney and Caithness. Sudrland did not include the North and Western parishes of the modern-day county of Sutherland. These were Clan Mackay territory - subsequently, in 1829 to be brought up by the husband of the 19th Countess of Sutherland (later created 1st Duke of Sutherland).
The first Earl of Sutherland's great-grandfather, Freskin, who was of Flemish origin, possessed much of Sudrland in the 12th Century, as well as lands at Duffus, in the present county of Moray (and elsewhere). The first Earl's father, Freskin's grandson Hugh de Moravia, was known as Lord de Sudrland. He also inherited the Duffus lands.
The followers of Freskin and his descendants, who may be called Clan Sutherland, therefore extended along the eastern part of the county of Sutherland into Nairn and Moray. They also extended northwards into Caithness, the traditional clan territory of the Sinclairs. Inter-clan skirmishes were therefore inevitable.
The two branches of Clan Sutherland most closely related to the Sutherland Earls, or Clan Chiefs, were the Lairds (and later Lords) of Duffus and the Lairds of Forse. The Duffus Lairds descended from Nicholas Sutherland, only brother of William, 5th Earl. The Forse Lairds stem from Kenneth Sutherland, only brother of Robert, 6th Earl. (Robert's half brother John, who was already a grandson of Robert the Bruce, predeceased his father.) Duffus, as already noted, is outside the country of Sutherland. So also is Forse, which is in Caithness. This reinforces the claim that Sutherland clan territory extended beyond the geographical borders of the county of Sutherland.
The Sutherland Earls, the Lairds of Forse and the vast majority of their adherents supported the Hanoverian succession to the British crown. They were not Jacobites. Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord of Duffus, however, was an ardent Jacobite during the 1715 uprising. When this failed, Kenneth was stripped of his title and lands. The title was later recovered by his grandson James, styled 5th Lord of Duffus, but James dies without legitimate descent and the title passed to a cousin, Sir Benjamin Sutherland Dunbar of Hempriggs, in Caithness. Benjamin's eldest surviving son, George, did not claim the title and he died a bachelor. The Duffus lordship then became extinguished. The Sutherlands of Forse continued to hold lands at Forse until early in this century and their line is still represented by Major George Sutherland, who lives in Golspie and is a Clan Chieftan.
After the unsuccessful Jacobite uprising in 1745, the clan system in Scotland was deliberately emasculated, as a national policy. But clan loyalties undoubtedly lingered on and even as late as 1799, the clan chief was able to raise the 93rd Regiment of Foot, the Sutherland Highlanders by calling on the support of her tacksmen, tenants and other followers. In fact, this regiment was raised by a cousin of the 19th Countess of Sutherland, major General William Wemyss. He selected the men he wished to serve in his regiment and, when they came to muster, not a single man selected failed to report. It is said that all the officers and the other ranks were either related or, at least, knew one another.
As the number of people in Sutherland grew apace, traditional ways of highland life were simply inadequate to support this burgeoning population. Emigration to England and the new world (particularly to the Americas) started as a trickle and soon became a flood. To an extent this was exacerbated by a policy known later as the Clearances, under which much small scale tenant farming was replaced by large scale sheep farming.
Many Sutherlands, who now live far and wide, are still proud of their surname, of their ancestral roots in the far north of Scotland and of the Sutherland tartan. There are active Clan Sutherland Societies in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States of America.
There is also an active Clan Sutherland Society in Scotland, which has its headquarters at Dunrobin castle, the ancestral seat of the Sutherland earls. The present chief of the clan, the 24th Countess of Sutherland is the Society's honorary president. In recent years, there have been gatherings of the Clan, in Sutherland.
At present the Clan chief is a lady, this is because the Sutherland earldom can be, and has been three times inherited by the nearest female descendant, in the absence of a male heir. Not so, the Sutherland dukedom, which can only be inherited by a male. For several Generations, the dukedom and earldom were held by one and the same person. But the 5th duke and 23rd Earl died in 1963, without issue. The dukedom was inherited by his nearest male relative, a distant cousin, the 5th Earl of Ellesmere. The earldom was inherited by his niece, the only child of his brother, Lord Alisdair Sutherland-Leveson-Gower. Following the death of the 6th Duke in September 2000 Francis Ronald Egerton aged 60, now becomes 7th Duke of Sutherland.
The Clan crest is a cat salient proper, the Clan motto is San Peur (without fear), the Clan emblem is the butcher's broom and the Clan pipe music is the Earl of Sutherland's March. In Gaelic, the Clan chief is called Morair Chat. Some authorities regard as Clan septs the families of Cheyne, Federith, Gray, Oliphant, Mowat, and a branch of the Keiths.
Compiled by Malcolm Sutherland : Clan Sutherland Historian
FAMILIES HISTORICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH CLAN SUTHERLAND
The word sept was originally used in Ireland and meant a division of a tribe. By the end of the 19th century in Scotland, when the clan system had become more of a tradition than a reality, the word sept had come to mean, “A family associated with the clan”.
The historian W.F. Skene, writing in the late-1880s, said “in Scotland the position of the sept will be best understood by the Bonds of Manrent (or Manred) which came to be taken by the chiefs (of clans) from their dependents when the relationship, constituted by usage and traditional custom, was relaxed by time or when constituted at a later period”.
The clan, in Skene's analysis, consisted of the chief, his kinsmen to a limited degree of kinship, the commonality who were of the same blood and who all bore the same name, and the chief's dependents. These consisted of subordinate septs who did not claim to be of the blood of the chief but were descended from the more ancient occupiers of the soil or were broken men from other clans who had taken protection from the chief. The influence of the acquisition of the right to property in land, which had originally developed the sept out of the tribe, likewise tended to make smaller septs within the clan.
Frank Adam writing a little later than Skene, in a work recognised by the Lord Lyon as being “far the most authoritative on the history and organisation of clans in Scotland” took a rather different view. He wrote, “the very word sept is delusive and no serious attention can now be attached to Skene's theories about septs as non-geological branches. Sometimes they might be, sometimes not”. Adam traced the origin of the clan sept names to a variety of causes, the principal ones being:
1. The names of those related to the chief by marriage, although not blood relations of his clan.
2. Those who, though unconnected by blood with the clan, had become bound to it by Bonds on Manrent.
3. Those of the blood of the clan who, in order that they might be better distinguished from their namesakes, adopted a by-name (for example the name of their father, or occupation, or physical peculiarity, or the name of the land which they occupied, or a new name to conceal their identity after the 1745 Jacobite Uprising).
Adam listed some 70 highland clans (about twice the number listed by other authorities) and for most of these clans he provided a list of septs which he described as “a rather wonderful effort of imagination”. For Clan Sutherland, Adam gave five (not six) septs; his exclusion being the family of Keith.
Before considering into which of Adam's categories the Clan Sutherland septs might fall, it would perhaps be helpful to explain “manrent”. Essentially “manrent” was the homage of an inferior to a superior. The superior (i.e. the chief and his clan) would afford protection; the inferior (i.e. the sept and his family) would be under the same obligations to the superior as were his own clansmen. In most instances these obligations would include military service.
An exhaustive study of Bonds of Manrent between 1442 and 1603 has been made by Jenny Wormald. During this period there was apparently, no bond of manrent, nor any formal contract of friendship, given to the Sutherland earls (chiefs of Clan Sutherland). On the contrary, Adam 10th Earl of Sutherland bonded himself in 1516 to support the Earl of Caithness in all actions along with his kin, friends and servants, especially again William Keith of Inverugie. A member of the Cheyne family and two members of the Keith family bonded themselves to the Earl of Errol; an Oliphant bonded himself to the 1st Lord Oliphant and a Federith bonded himself to the Abbott of Deer. Likewise the historian of the Sutherland earls, Sir William Fraser, did not identify any bond of manrent given to a Sutherland earl. Neither can it be said that the names of Cheyne, Federith, Gray, Keith, Mowat and Oliphant are by-names; that is to say that they were not alternative names taken by people of the blood of the Clan Sutherland chiefs by marriage. Under Adam's definition, therefore, the only justification for including these six families as septs of Clan Sutherland would be that they were related to the Clan Sutherland chiefs by marriage.
Some reservations can be made immediately. Most of the sept families were strong and well established in their own right before one of their number married into the Sutherland family. At the most, therefore, only a minor branch of these families could be categorised as a sept of Clan Sutherland. Furthermore, some of these sept families died out or merged with a more senior branch of their own family.
Secondly it is worth remembering that on three occasions the Sutherland earldom has been inherited by a female descendent. The most important of these occasions was the first one, in that, at that time (1514), the clan system was a reality, not just a tradition. Elizabeth, who became Countess of Sutherland in 1514 married Adam Gordon, the second son of the 2nd Earl of Huntly. Adam Gordon became the 10th Earl of Sutherland under Scots Law. Adam and Elizabeth's descendents were, strictly cadets of the House of Huntly and thus might be classified as septs of Clan Gordon! They carried the surname Gordon until William, 17th Earl of Sutherland (1708-1750) adopted the surname Sutherland and was duly recognised as Chief of Clan Sutherland.
The third reservation about accepting six (or five) families only, as septs of Clan Sutherland is that there were many other families, over the centuries were related to the clan chiefs by marriage. Some of these additional families are recognised (by some authorities) as clans in their own stead but others are not. Here it may be said that the Keith's are recognised by some authorities as a clan in their own right.
References
Adam, Frank : The Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands (1970 edition)
Fraser, Sir William : The Sutherland Book (1892)
Keltie J.S. : The History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans and Highland Regiments (1879)
Skene, W.F. : Celtic Scotland (18867 – 1890)
Todd, George E. : The Highland Clans of Scotland (1923)
Wormald, Jenny : Lords and Men in Scotland – Bonds of Manrent 1442-1603 (1985)
Compiled by Malcolm Sutherland : Author of "A Fighting Clan"
FAMILIES HISTORICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH CLAN SUTHERLAND
We have on file the histories of the individual families associated with Clan Sutherland. If you would like a copy of one of these, we can send it to you as an email attachment. Please contact us at - info@clansutherland.org.uk