THE STATUTES OF ION A (1609) AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
HIGHLAND CLAN SYSTEM
Valerie Smith
Introduction
The destruction of the Highland Clan system is often dated from the defeat
of the Highland Jacobite Clans at Culloden on 16th April1745. 1 It is true
that Drumossie Muir on that day saw the final defeat of a system that had
arisen from early tribal beginnings in the vastness of the Scottish Highlands
but if this date marked the end it is not this date that should be dwelt upon,
nor perhaps, its Jacobite origins, if one seeks the way in which the Highland
Clans were brought down. Only a full examination of preceding events in
Scottish History will clarify all the ways that led to the final demise of the
Highland Clan, its culture, land, people, laws, wealth, language 2 and leaders.
Culloden was the last Government action taken to enforce what had been
aimed at for centuries and had been threatened in the so called Statutes of
Iona in 1609. 3
In Scotland's recorded histories, the shift in relationships between
the Scottish State and the Highlands has been marked by two dates, 1493
when the Lordship of the Isles was forfeited, (thus ending the possibility of
a semi-independent state developing in the West) and the 1746 defeat ofthe
last Jacobite uprising at Culloden (which signalled the end of the
autonomous military power of the Highland clans). Halfway between these
dates, however, we find the agreement known as the Statutes of Iona in
1609. Although there were many attempts in the years prior to this
gathering on Iona when twelve local clan chiefs agreed to a set of
conditions presented to them by the bishop of the Isles, the Statutes offer a
clear indication of the position the government sought to establish as
For example in Michael Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London:
Century, 1991); J.D. Mackie, Bruce Lenman and Geoffrey Parker, A
History ofScotland(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978); Bruce Lenman,
The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689-1746 (London: Eyre Methuen,
1980); T. C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People (London: Collins,
1979); T. M. Devine (ed.), The Scottish Nation 1700-2007
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2007); or in the 19th century James Browne,
History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans (Londond; Edinburgh;
Dublin: A. Fullarton and Co., 1851), p. 458.
Victor Durkacz, The Decline of the Celtic Languages (Edinburgh: John
Donald, 1983).
Julian Goodare, 'The Statutes of Iona in Context' Scottish Historical
Review vol. 77 (1998), pp. 31-57.
The Statutes of Iona
Highland Policl although there is continuing debate about how effective
they were and what their principal purpose was. 5
From the earliest records, the historic differences between the Chiefs
and Crown were principally the way the chiefs set themselves firmly against
the institution of a standing Crown army, and the taxation that would be
extracted to support it, their argument being that it would weaken the
defensive strength of the clans. To them, the monarchs were the 'Kings of
Scots' not 'Kings of Scotland'; they rejected the doctrine accepted in
England that land was the inherent property of the State. To the Clan Chief
land was what lawyers would term 'allodial' 6 and was held by prima
terrarum occupatione under God. It was inalienable and the home of each
group or clan.
Prior to the Union of Crowns
The Clans supported Alexander II and the Bruce sovereigns and were
largely left undisturbed at this time. The first 'marker' to the troubles ahead
comes in the year 1411 when Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had a good
claim to the Earldom of Ross (one of the seven ancient mormaer titles)7 ,
descended into the Lowlands with the intention of sacking Aberdeen and
Michael Lynch, 'James VI and the Highland Problem' in Julian Goodare
and Michael Lynch (eds), The Reign ofJames VI (Edinburgh: Tuckwell
Press, 2000).
For a response to Goodare see Martin McGregor, 'The Statutes of lona:
Text and Context' Innes Review vol. 57, no.2 (2006), pp. 111-181.
Allodial land was generally described as free of rent or service held
independent of a lord paramount and therefore the opposite of feudal but
beyond that there were differences between countries in its legal position.
It was the primary form ofland tenure in Germany especially east of the
Elbe for most of the Middle Ages. See Perry Anderson, Lineages of the
Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1979), pp. 222-223; it was a subject of
much legal wrangling in the 19th century and it carried with it its own
form of jurisdiction. See Karl Leyser, Communications and Power in
Medieval Germany, ed Timothy Reuter (London: The Hambledon Press,
1994), p 134.
Euphemia, Countess of Ross, had inherited the Earldom following the
death of her father William, who had no male heirs. Her first husband was
Sir Walter Leslie, who died in 1382, from whom she had a son, Alexander
and a daughter Margaret. Euphemia took as her second husband
Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Buchan, who assumed the title. Leslie
recovered the earldom in 1398 and married Isabella Stewart, the daughter
of Regent Albany. Donald of Is lay, Lord of the Isles was married to
Margaret Leslie, the sister of Alexander, from whom his claim to Ross
arose. See http://en.>vikipedia.orglwiki/Battle of Harlaw for more details.
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The Statutes of Ion a
dispersing the forces of the Duke of Albany, Regent of the kingdom, who
had a different claim. Some ten thousand Highlanders assembled beneath
the banner of the Lord of the Isles at Harlaw where they were met by a force
under Alexander Stewart Earl of Mar. On the 24th July a bloody but
indecisive battle was fought Five hundred of Mar's forces were killed
including many Lowland barons. The Lowland fear of gathering Highland
power brought the Highlands into direct conflict with Lowland law.
The release of James I in 1424 after he had spent 18 years of
captivity in England became the next problem for the Highlands. Whilst a
'guest' of the English Lancastrian kings, James learned of the English
system of parliamentary, and representative government as a centralised
system. He returned to Scotland with the intention of reorganising the
existing unicameral Parliament and the Great-Council of Scotland into both
a House of Lords and House of Commons, 8 and reducing the Celtic
earldoms to purely personal peerages. It was his intent to destroy the House
of Albany, confiscate the earldoms of Stratheam, Lennox, and Mar and
suppress the whole Celtic area of the Kingdom. His pursuit of this policy for
the Anglicisation of Scotland and extirpation of the great Clan divisions
culminated in popular resentment and his murder at Perth in 1437.
The Lords of the Isles continued to behave like semi-independent
rulers, making treaties with the English but the hold of the Scottish
monarchs over the Western Isles was strengthened towards the close of the
15th century by the downfall of John fourth and last Lord of the Isles when
having lost his clan support he had to submit to James IV who annexed the
title to the Crown. Attempts by John's heirs to reassert their position finally
failed in 1543. Thenceforth the title of Lord ofthe Isles would be borne by
the Duke ofRothesay, eldest son ofthe sovereign. 9
James IV, with the assistance of the Campbell dukes of Argyll, also
used other ways and means for bringing the clans directly under the Royal
influence. His favourite device was that of encouraging one clan to attack
another and thereby to weaken the power of both. Another was concealing
charters by which the West Highland chiefs held their ancestral possessions
SeeK. M. Brown and R. J. Tanner, The History of the Scottish Parliament,
Volume 1: Parliament and Politics, 1235-1560 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2004).
A Grant, 'Scotland's "Celtic Fringe" in the Late Middle Ages: The
Macdonald Lords of the Isles and the Kingdom of Scotland', in A. Grant
and R. R. Davies (ed.), The British Isles, 1100-1500 (Edinburgh: J.
Donald Publishers, 1988).
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The Statutes of Iona
and offering them instead other tenures. 10 The object was to bring the Chiefs
under the ordinary legal situation of the rest of Scotland. James IV, however,
learnt the Gaidhlig language and did see value his Highlanders, many of
whom fought with him at Flodden. During the reign of his son James V
relations with the Highlanders remained quite cordial. James V even wore
the Highland dress.
From these Stewart sovereigns, clanship and its customs received
some understanding and encouragement at a predominantly lowland "that is
'Incountrey' as opposed to 'Outcountrey' or periphery" Court. This historic
association was no doubt factored into the relationships between the Stuarts
and the Chiefs in the troubled days of the eighteenth century when it was
mainly upon the Highland Chiefs that the Stuart kings had to rely.
The Reformation was to drive a different wedge between the
Highlands and Lowlands. In parts of the Highlands as elsewhere the new
creed was not only to uproot many of the old customs but also stunt for an
appreciable time the growth, and revival of Highland arts and
accomplishments. Under Archbishop James Beaton of Glasgow, despite his
conservatism, a statesmanlike readjustment might have been achieved and
the old traditions, with modifications, carried on" but in 1559 John Knox
proved only too able to propagate the doctrines of Calvin and within a short
time untold damage had been done to the glorious antiquities and ancient
culture of Scotland. 12 Knox's sermons encouraged iconoclasm. The ancient
churches and cathedrals of Scotland were stripped, their archives dispersed
or burnt and, beautiful manuscripts and paintings, native art and the
craftsmanship of jewellery and carvings of the old Celtic saints were
destroyed In the more inaccessible parts of the Highlands however, the old
faith persisted.
James VI who wrote; "And as ye see it manifest that the King is
overlord of the whole land, so is he master over every person that inhabiteth
the same, having power over the life and death of every one of them" 13 was
not enamoured of the differing views of his Highland subjects and on
10
This was a complex procedure as it had to have advantages for the chiefs
as well as the monarch. See Alison Cathcart, Kinship and Clientage:
Highland Clanship, 1451-1609 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006).
11
Margaret Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland, David Beaton c. 1494-1546
(Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press 1986).
12
Jasper Godwin Ridley, John Knox (New York: Oxford University Press,
1968).
13
'A Trew Law of Free Monarchies: Or the Reciprock and Mutual Duetie
Betwixt a Free King, and His Naturall Subjects', c. 1597
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The Statutes oflona
reaching the age of 21 he started to legislate against them. A list of
Highland clans was embodied in an Act passed by the Scottish Parliament
in 1587 "for the quieting and keeping in obedience of the inhabitants of the
Borders, Highlands and Isles". The list of chiefs in the Highlands,
(reproduced in footnote below) is very considerable as the Act, which set up
a special court of the Privy Council "for receiving, hearing, answering and
directing of all complaints, causes and matters concerning the misrule ofthe
disordered and troublesome subjects, inhabitants [of] the highlands and
borders, and attempts committed by them upon the good and peaceable
subjects in the in-country'', required "landlords who have their lands lying
in far highlands or borders, they making residence themselves in the
inlands" nevertheless to take action to enforce the royal fiat. 14
In 1597 several Acts of Parliament were passed relating to the
Highlands and Islands. One, entitled "That the inhabitants of the His and
Heilandis shaw their haldings (charters)", required all persons possessing or
pretending to possess a right to lands in the Highland and Islands to exhibit
their titles to the Lords of Exchequer on the 15th of May 1598 and at the
same time to "give suitable security for their future good conduct towards
their king, their neighbours and such as desired to trade with them".
The penalty for non-compliance or inability to comply with these
commands was forfeiture of property they either held or claimed. Over a
great part of the Highlands many of the clan lands were still held by tenures
which had not been committed to writing and had only been after the old
manner being 'done in open court' i.e. by real investiture in the Clan or
Provincial council. Many of the Highland chiefs when asked to exhibit
proof of their titles, produced their own sword along with a body of their
clansmen and proudly pointed to these as their titles of possession. 15
In many cases the Act was enforced by conferring a new Crown
charter on payment of a substantial amount, in other words the unfortunate
Highlanders were made to buy back their own lands or agree to pay the
Crown a handsome feu-duty, that is to accept that the land was no longer
allodial, where the original holding until then had effectively been allodial'.
In cases where it was claimed the land was held by grant from the Lord of
the Isles either by charter or by ceremony at the Black Stones the Edinburgh
14
The Scottish parliament project offers a translation of this.
http://www.ms.ac.uk/1587/7/70
15
For a detailed account of this period see John Leonard Roberts, Feuds,
Forays and Rebellions: History of the Highland Clans (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1999).
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The Statutes oflona
lawyers evolved a theory that unless confirmed by the Crown such tenures
had become void by the forfeiture of the Lord of the Isles. Thus, further
grounds were found for expropriating Highland property and the
requirement of making the chiefs re-purchase their own lands. In the long
term this made the land alienable, allowed the chiefs to treat their followers
as mere tenants and treat the property as theirs alone but few took
immediate advantage ofthis. 16
On completion of the Report by the Royal Commissioners under the
Act of 1597, the islands of Lewis and Harris, the areas of Trottemish, and
Dunvegan in Skye and Glenelg on the mainland were declared at the king's
disposal. The Crown argued that from the very absence of Crown charters
under Scottish law they could claim for the Crown land it had previously
never owned. In 1598 therefore, the Government conveyed these lands to a
Lowland company belonging to the East Coast known as the Fife
Adventurers. These speculators arranged to begin by colonising the Island
of Lewis. Their contract with the Crown bound them "to plant policy and
civilisation in the hitherto most barbarous Isle of Lewis with Iona and
Trottemish". The inhabitants, however, resisted and after three attempts to
take possession and a succession of struggles and open warfare that lasted
for twelve year 'the Adventurers' were in 1610 obliged to resign their
claims, to purchase a remission from the king for their enemies and to leave
hostages until this was achieved. As a consequence of the struggle between
Highland and Lowlander Lewis passed from the MacLeods and was handed
over to the MacKenzies. 17
James and the Pacification of the Highlands
Prior to the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 the
efforts of the Crown and Parliament to weaken the Highlands clan system
had ended in failure. Circumstances altered after 1603. The King's English
advisers were ever alert to make use of any opportunity for weakening the
northern sister kingdom and subordinating its interests to those of the more
powerful 'predominant partner'. The ruling faction in the Lowlands who
had become largely Presbyterian regarded with bitter and fanatical feeling
the Highlanders who held the balance of power in Scotland. Although
Lowland Scots and the English were equally jealous of each other, their
common object was to weaken the Highland clans and thereby an unnatural
alliance was formed. 18 James's main object was money, but he was also
16
Henry VIII had used this same device in Ireland in the 1540s.
17
Roberts, Feuds, Forays and Rebellions, pp. 137-139, 142-143.
18
Jane H Oldemeyer in The Oxford History of the British Empire, ed,
William Roger Louis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
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The Statutes of Ion a
disgusted by what he perceived as the uncivilised behaviour of the
Highlanders and their evil disposition and barbarity. They were "void of any
knowledge of God or his religion." 19 Andrew Stewart earl of Ochiltree and
Andrew Knox, bishop of the Isles and 'abbot of Icolmkill' were sent in
1608 as the king's commissioners to the Isles and Ochiltree was able to
trick a number of clan chiefs (traditionally twelve) into boarding his ship
and take them into custody from which they were not released until they
had signed the bond and statutes. 20 that abolished all the heritable
jurisdiction of the Chiefs of Clans, placing their castles at the disposal ofthe
Crown; ordering the breaking up and destruction of the Galleys, berlins and
lymphads of the Island Clans. 21 The Government's first stage to 'progress'
was thus to undermine the existing beautiful and effective system of Island
communications. Next they prohibited the use of guns, bows and two
handed swords by the clans-people and the Chiefs were compelled to send
their children as hostages to Edinburgh so they "may be found able
sufficiently to speik, reid and wryte Englische" under penalty of death. 22
In 1609 Ochiltree did not accompany Knox and the king's primarily
financial intentions were over-ridden by Knox's personal agenda that
produced "the distinctly loose and impractical agreement that has come to
be known as the 'Statutes oflona'."23 which aimed at evangelising the Isles.
At first sight it might appear that the above statutes were framed with the
benevolent idea of civilising the Highland and imparting instruction to their
inhabitants. The true purpose however was to destroy the tribal Celtic
civilisation and to pave the way for the exploitation of the Highlands by
companies like the Fife Adventurers.
To less prejudiced eyes, the Highlands were far from being either
uncivilised or without instruction or codes of law. On the contrary there
were schools of language music and architecture. True, English was not
taught, however Latin, which was at this period the language of diplomacy
was familiar to most Highland gentlemen. The Highlands were famed for
19
Roberts, Feuds, Forays and Rebellions, p. 137.
20
David Armitage. 'Making the Empire British, Scotland and the Atlantic
world 1542-1707' Past and Present vol. 155 (1997), pp. 34-63.
21
Jenny Wormald 'The Creation of Britain: Multiple Kingdoms or Core and
Colonies' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Ser., vol. 2
(1992), pp. 175-194.
22
Kenneth MacKinnon, Gaelic -A Past and Future Prospect (Edinburgh:
The Saltire Society, 1991), p. 46.
23
Michael Lynch, 'James VI and the Highland Problem' in Julian Goodare
and Michael Lynch ( eds), The Reign ofJames VI (Edinburgh: Tuckwell
Press, 2000), p. 222.
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The Statutes of Iona
their manufactures, smiths and jewellers. Progress and changes came
harmoniously by degrees under the influence of the experience of each new
generation. The clans exported manufactured goods, timber, and stone to
the continent of Europe and received in exchange various articles of
commerce. Wine was plentiful in the Highlands until the seventeenth
century. The fine wrought iron gateway on the steps of the river terrace to
the Castle of Donibristle was sent from Holland in exchange for stone from
the Highlands. 24
While the Statutes of Icolmkill, aimed at damaging the commerce of
the Highlands appears to have succeeded, the provisions regarding the
disarmament of the Highlanders was more honoured in the breach than in
the observance. Had it been otherwise the risings in 1715 and 1745 might
never have taken place
Professor Macinnes, in Clanship, argues that the Statutes
"commenced a sustained legislative offensive by the Crown, to modify, if
not terminate, the disruptive aspects of Clanship."25 He treats the Statutes as
a considered and coherent programme that, once introduced, buttressed the
privileged position of the chiefs, and clan elite while assimilating them to
the Scottish Landed Gentry. and that therefore from this time we can trace
the beginning of what later followed in the loss of Highland Culture,
Highland law and the Highland Clan. In fact the programme was more
piecemeal than that but Acts of the Scottish Parliament in 1616 and 1617
reinforced the requirements that obliged the chiefs to involved themselves
more closely in the Lowland culture and saw the decline of Gaelic literature
and song.
24
Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert
Association in Northern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
25
Allan Macinnes, Clans hip, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-
1788 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996).
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