Preface

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THE ORIGINAL EDITION of this work appeared in 1879, fifteen years ago. It was well received by the press, by the clan, and by all interested in the history of the Highlands. The best proof of this is the fact that the book has for several years been out of print, occasional second-hand copies of it coming into the market selling at a high premium on the original subscription price.

Personally, however, I was never satisfied with it. It was my first clan history, and to say nothing of inevitable defects of style by a comparatively inexperienced hand, it was for several other reasons necessarily incomplete, and in many respects not what I should wish the history of my own clan to be.

This edition, which extends to close upon two hundred pages more than its predecessor, has an accurate and well-executed plate of the clan tartan, and a life-like portrait of the Author; has been almost entirely re-written; contains several families omitted from the first; has all been carefully revised; and although not even now absolutely perfect, I believe it is almost as near being so as it is possible for any work which contains such an enormous number of dates and other details as this one to be. The mythical Fitzgerald origin of the clan, hitherto accepted by most of its leading members, is exhaustively dealt with, I venture to hope effectively, if not completely and finally disposed of. That it is now established beyond any reasonable dispute to have been a pure invention of the seventeenth century may, I think, be safely asserted, while it is, with almost equal conclusiveness, shown that the Mackenzies are descended from a native Celtic chief of the same stock as the original O’Beolan Earls of Ross, as set forth in the Table printed on page 39. My list of subscribers, for a second edition, shows in the most gratifying form that the work is still in active demand, and I am sanguine enough to expect that as soon as it is issued to the public the remaining copies will be quickly disposed of.

I am indebted to a young gentleman, Mr Evan North Burton-Mackenzie, Younger of Kilcoy, of whom I venture to predict more will be heard in this particular field, for valuable genealogical notes about his own and other Mackenzie families, while for the copious and well-arranged Index at the end of the volume—a new feature of this edition—I have again to acknowledge the services of my eldest son, Hector Rose Mackenzie, solicitor, Inverness.

A. M.
PARK HOUSE, INVERNESS,
March 1894