THE END OF THE CLAN SYSTEM

That the disaffected and savage Highlanders need to be bridled and kept in awe by garrisons and standing forces, ’till the present generation wears out is evident to all men of common understanding, and that those unhappy and infatuated people will still continue savages if nothing is done to recover them from their ignorance and barbarity; but as the rest of the people of Britain who are now civilized were once as wild and barbarous as the Highlanders, I think it is not to be doubted but that proper measures would civilize them also.

Edmund Bruce (1750)

The suppression of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493 ended any real possibility that a Gaelic polity would arise that could challenge the political dominance of the Kings of the Scots in their Lowland heartlands. Despite this, Scottish kings continued to find it very difficult to impose their authority north of the Highland line. The rugged terrain and undeveloped economy had much to do with this state of affairs, but the Highlands also contained a much higher proportion of Scotland’s population in early modern times than they do today, after the Clearances, and much of this population was armed and willing to fight. Although the Scottish crown had shown that it was more than a match for even the most powerful Highland magnate, the fall of the Lordship of the Isles left a power vacuum in the Highlands that the royal government was only partially able to fill. This left space for Gaelic clans to rise to political prominence. The crown exercised its authority indirectly by using loyal clans as its agents and enforcers by giving them commissions to use fire and sword against disobedient clans. The reward for the chiefs of these clans was wealth, land, status and prestige. Three clans in particular came to dominate the Highlands through their allegiance to the crown; the Campbells in the west Highlands, the Mackenzies in the northern Highlands and Hebrides, and the Gordons in the north-east. There were dangers to the crown in its dependence on these clans, whose chiefs, especially the Campbell dukes of Argyll, proved adept at manipulating government policy to their own advantage.