If I talk about island clans and dispossession,
no matter what I say some people paint their own picture of English kings,
or noblemen dispossessing and oppressing Hebridean islanders.
Today I DO want to talk about an English king who set out on a brutal plan of
dispossession and ethnic cleansing with a little help from his friends
but it started when he was King of Scots. If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe
button at the bottom right of the screen. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
Now, I want to tell you a story of chauvinistic greed, of self-interested scheming, dishonest dealing,
clan rivalry, royal brutality and ethnic cleansing,
and of course it starts in Fife. Now, when I say Fife, I'm not talking
about down at heel, ex coal mining, hard living, sex with your sister Fife.
In spite of all the jokes, I quite like those Fifers.
No, I'm talking about quaint, picturesque, tourist haven, East Neuk of Fife, Fifers.
I'm talking about James the Sixth and The Fife Adventurers.
Let me briefly summarise the situation for three key actors in this drama.
In the 1580s and 1590s, the burghs down the East Neuk of Fife:
Crail here, Pittenweem and Anstruther, even St Andrews, they were the most productive
centres for fishing in Scotland. In fact, returns to the Exchequer
show that 80 - 92% of the taxes paid, were paid from the proceeds of fishing.
Now remember that some of the estates that benefited
weren't just temporal, but ecclesiastical.
It seems that the ministers of the church weren't only fishing for men,
but the fish from which gentlemen of Fife profited, weren't caught out there in the North Sea,
but in West Highland Waters off the coast of Lewis,
then they were brought here to the Lowland east coast.
But in 1591 through to 1599, the taxes that this group paid from fishing
plummeted to 46% of their total tax take. The gentlemen and churches of Fife
were losing money, and so was the king.
Where were the fish going? The Fife lairds complained of
"greitt extortioun usit upoun thame by the MacLeods of the Northern Hebrides".
It seems that the MacLeods of Lewis wanted their cut before the king got his. That wasn't good!
There may be trouble ahead. Actually trouble was already here.
In MacLeod country, things weren't running smoothly.
How many MacLeods of Clan MacLeod can there be?
There s going to be some fighting. Why?
Well, Roderick MacLeod, chief of Clan MacLeod married a woman from MacKenzie of Kintail
but when she gave birth to their first son Roderick was pretty sure there had
been a bit of hanky panky, and the child wasn't his,
so he divorced the wife and sent her and her/his son back to the MacKenzies.
He then went on to marry again, twice,
and he had illegitimate children on top of that. He sounds like a bit of a hanky
panky merchant himself. After the hanky panky came a
lot of jiggery pokery, which included the now adult, illegitimate son,
assuming that s what he was, coming over from Kintail with MacKenzie support,
abducting his mum s ex-husband, maybe his dad and locking him up until he agreed to name him
as his successor. Long story short,
MacLeod of Clan MacLeod has a number of his children either backed by his own MacLeod clan
or the mainland Mackenzies of Kintail all killing each other because there can be only one.
So the Fife fisher gentlemen aren't happy,
and the MacLeods of Lewis and the MacLeods on the mainland and the MacKenzies aren't happy.
What about James the Sixth? Well he's not happy either.
Actually he's never been happy with the Gaels; a barbarous people with a barbarous tongue.
For years James had been thinking about how he could plant lowland colonies in
the islands to civilize them, a bit like the native Americans,
or Aboriginal Australians, or Indian sub-continent in the future.
So on 16 December 1597 an act was passed in parliament.
Clan chiefs would be required to produce valid title deeds, documenting the ownership of their
territory by the fifteenth of May 1598, otherwise their lands would be forfeit.
Now James knew that these kin-based chiefs would never have documentation like that.
The Act also set out plans to establish a burgh in Stornoway to tackle the lack of civility .
Now, if only there was a group of folk who would have enough of an interest in
the resources of Lewis, to head off up there
to set up a colony and establish a burgh in the face of local opposition.
Hold on, those Fife
fisher gentlemen would become The Fife Adventurers
This is Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. This is where the ferry arrives from the
mainland today, and it's roughly where these Fife Adventurers would have arrived in November 1598.
They wouldn't have seen a candle shop, a money shop, and an Indian restaurant.
I mean the Indian restaurant was probably there, but it wouldn't have been as welcoming.
No 'Would sir like some poppadums and spicy onions whilst he's waiting?'
No, no, no, no, no, oh
It'd be all, 'I'm Sandeep MacLeod of Clan MacLeod,
there can be only Naaaan!'
I'm not proud of myself. What I'm saying
is that over there is roughly where the original castle was, and where these gentlemen
adventurers arrived, folk were throwing things, but 600 troops do give you a bit of leverage,
and so they took the somewhat dilapidated castle, that sat just there, pretty easily, and then they signed up
to a set of rules for their joint stock company, which included that there was to be "na mareage
or uther particular freindschip to be between any of the societie,
without consent of the haill, with any Hyland man."
No fraternising with the natives, and from this temporary base they
made incursions further into the island in an attempt colonise Lewis
and bend the MacLeods to their will. Now, let's be honest, when clans are divided
and a group of gentlemen with military support arrive with royal backing
there's only one way this is going to end, but they were largely confined to this area
where they started to build houses. Some of wood, others of stone.
Now these houses didn't look like the black houses on the island.
They looked like houses of civilized people from Fife ...
(Don't take the piss, don't take the piss, don't take the piss)
This probably all sounds familiar.
It's the same pattern that played out over centuries:
Scots would repeat it in Nova Scotia, with disastrous results in Panama,
conquistadors in South America, the French in Acadia,
the British well everywhere. But what seems shocking
is that it's perpetrated by one part of our country on another on behalf of the king.
As the houses were built, around that original castle over by the shore,
the soldiers provided protection and they needed to.
There was constant harassment by the MacLeods, largely
under Neil MacLeod, the illegitimate son of the recently deceased chief.
Now, I say constant sometimes the Lowland
planters got support from the MacKenzies across on the mainland, which eased the pressure.
Sometimes they got support from elements of Clan MacLeod on the mainland
who saw their MacKenzie neighbours as a far bigger threat than the planters.
There were even times when the MacLeods on the island called a truce ,
but for four years things swung between guerrilla conflict, factional fighting and an uneasy truce,
with a bit of backstabbing thrown in for good measure.
All the time James was in Edinburgh complaining that things weren't going fast enough.
Remember, his original strategy had been just to slaughter the indigenous people and just replace them.
Now the intricacies of the to-ing and fro-ing during those four years,
and indeed the ten years after are too involved for this particular video,
but if you want fuller details, then Dr Aonghas MacCoinnich has written an 85 page analysis of
the Fife Adventurers and the Lewis Plantation. You can buy on Brill and I'll leave a link in
the description. Better still,
Aonghas has agreed to sit down with me for one of my conversations with experts in March.
So if you're a Pateron member, please send in any questions this video throws up
about Lowland plantations of the Hebrides, and I'll put your questions to Aonghas.
If you're not already a Patreon Member and you want to ask questions or access the
growing list of conversations with experts, then just click the link up there to join.
In 1602, onto the ever-shifting scheming sands of a Hebridean beach arrived Tormod MacLeod.
When the MacKenzies, his gaolers for the last few years, let him go and he returned
to Lewis, the MacLeods of Lewis rallied, and in March 1602 they attacked the settlement,
setting the wooden houses ablaze and killing 50 of the defenders,
including one of the principal gentlemen planters.
There's one little pig that now wishes he'd built his house of stone.
The rest of the colonists had no choice but capitulation and capture.
All but three hostages were released to return
to the Lowlands, with conditions.
All rights to Lewis were to be signed over to Tormod MacLeod.
That would go along with a full pardon from James, of course,
and, to compensate for their losses, they'd give the survivors a big bag
of fish to take back to Fife. The fact that the hostages were
eventually released suggests that King James agreed to these terms
but he must have been left a bit red faced and pretty pissed off
The king and his Fife Adventurers had been defeated by these barbarians.
Of course James may have pardoned the MacLeods, but you know that
he didn't keep his side of the bargain and demanded that the Fife Adventurers return.
The problem wasn't the IDEA of plantation and colonising of natives.
The problem wasn't the concept of extirpation of a people and a language.
The problem wasn't even that he had overestimated the willingness of the people to be extirpated or the
land to produce milk and honey. The problem was lack of effort of
the planters, and so James ploughed on. Twice more in 1605 and then in 1609 James
attempted to drum up new groups of colonists. By the 1605 attempt he was king of England as well
and the planters had English naval support and yet failed.
In spite of the eventual hanging of Neil MacLeod, for fire-raising, murder, theft and piracy
essentially the things James had intended to do to the MacLeods
the third 1609 attempt was also a failure. It's clear that a different
solution was needed. Hence the Statutes of Iona.
Now, if you want to understand these Statutes of Iona, and more of the ethnic cleansing of James the Sixth,
there's a video coming up on screen now. In the meantime
Tha mi an dochas gum bi lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda