A warrior of the Chatti tribe is said to have killed the Danish General, Camus, at the Battle of Barrie in 1010.[1] For this valour Malcolm II of Scotland dipped three fingers into the blood of the dead and drew them down the warrior's shield.[1] The warrior was thereafter named Marbhachair Chamuis which meant the Camus Slayer.[1] The chief of the Clan Keith has borne the same three lines on his shield ever since.[1] It can be found as early as 1316 on the seal of Sir Robert de Keith.[1]
King Malcolm's victory at the Battle of Carham in 1018 brought him into possession of Lothian, and the lands of Keith in Lothian were subsequently held by the Camus Slayer.[1] It is from these lands that his progeny took their name.[1]
A Norman adventurer named Hervey married the native heiress of Marbhachair and in about 1150 David I of Scotland granted her a charter for the lands of Keith.[1] In a charter of 1176, their son was styled as Marischal of the King of Scots.[1] The Marischal was charged with the safety of the king's person within Parliament and was also custodian of the royal regalia.[1]
The Clan Crest and motto
The clan crest is a roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) also known as the roe, western roe deer or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. (https://www.scotsconnection.com/clan_crests/keith.htm). The Keith Clan Motto: Veritas Vincit is translated as Truth Conquers.
The Clan Keith were often at feud with the neighbouring Clan Irvine and, in 1402, the Clan Irvine are said to have attacked and defeated an invading war party of the Clan Keith in what was known as the Battle of Drumoak.[3]
Sir William Keith the Marischal who died in 1407 married the heiress of Sir Alexander Fraser and in doing so added great estates in Buchan, Kincardine and Lothian to his existing patrimony.[1] William's brother, John Keith, married the Cheyne heiress which brought the Keiths massive estates in Inverugie as well as Inverugie Castle, which later became the seat of the clan chiefs.[1] Three of Sir William Keith's children married children of Robert II of Scotland, while another daughter married Sir Adam Gordon, ancestor of the Earls of Huntly.[1]
Circa 1458, the heir of the Marischal or Great Marischal was made 1st Earl Marischal and was the only peer to be styled by his office of state.[1]
A branch of the Clan Keith who inhabited Caithness fought at the Battle of Tannach (probably 1464) where they assisted the Clan Mackay against the Clan Gunn.[4] They later fought another battle against the Gunns, known as the Battle of Champions (probably 1478). This battle was fought between twelve men of the Clan Gunn and twenty four men of the Clan Keith. All the Gunns, including the chief of the clan, were killed. However, Keith of Ackergill was soon after killed by the Gunns in a revenge attack.[5]
16th and 17th centuries
The ruins of Dunnottar Castle, a seat of the chiefs of Clan Keith
A clansmen, William Keith of Delny (died 1599), was a Scottish courtier and Master of the Royal Wardrobe.[6] He also served as ambassador for James VI to various countries.[7][8] He was an important intermediary between George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal and the king, the king and courtiers, and the king and foreign governments.[9]
After Charles II of England was crowned in 1651, William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London.[1] He remained there until the Restoration when the king appointed him a Privy Councillor and later Lord Privy Seal as recompense for what he and his family had suffered in the royal cause.[1] After Charles's coronation the Scottish crown jewels had been hidden on the Keith lands and as a result Marischal's brother, John Keith, was created Knight Marischal and Earl of Kintore.[1]
In 1978, the Chief of Clan Keith and the Commander of Clan Gunn signed a peace treaty at the site of the Chapel of St. Tayrs, ending the feud between the two clans which began in 1478.[10]
In 2002, the 13th Earl of Kintore, who was the previous Chief of Clan Keith, entered into a peace treaty the previous Chief of Clan Irvine, with at an elaborate ceremony on the banks of the River Dee to end their 600-year feud.[11]
Keith tartan
Chief
The current Chief of Clan Keith is Sir James William Falconer Keith of Urie, 14th Earl of Kintore, 14th Lord Keith of Inverurie and Keith Hall, 4th Viscount Stonehaven, 4th Baron Stonehaven, 5th Baronet, 6th of Ury (b. 15 April 1976).
Castles
Keith Marischal House, three miles south of Pencaitland, East Lothian, is an L-plan tower house that dates from the sixteenth century.[12] It is on the site of an earlier castle that was built by the Keiths from the fourteenth century.[12]
Dunnottar Castle stands on a cliff-girt promontory above the sea a couple of miles south of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire.[12] There has been a strong-hold there since the twelfth century, although it was held by the Keiths from 1382 after they exchanged their property of Struthers with the Clan Lindsay for Dunnottar.[12] The present ruins at Dunnottar include a tower, courtyard, chapel and the entrance to the castle that is up a steep ascent through a tunnel.[12]Donald, King of Scots was killed there in 900 and William Wallace captured the castle from the English in 1297.[12]Mary, Queen of Scots stayed at the castle in 1562 and James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose unsuccessfully laid siege to the castle in 1645.[12] William Keith, 9th Earl Marischal entertained Charles II of England at the castle in 1650 and the Scottish regalia was kept there when Oliver Cromwell invaded in 1651.[12] Cromwell besieged the castle in 1652 and it only capitulated after eight months by starvation and mutiny.[12] The castle garrison had then been commanded by Sir Robert Keith, fourth son of the 6th Earl Marischal.[12] The castle was held for William of Orange in 1689 and many Jacobites were imprisoned in it.[12] The Duke of Argyll partly slighted the castle after George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal had supported the Jacobite rising of 1715.[12]
Keith Hall in Aberdeenshire, once known as Caskieben,[12] is the current seat of the chief of Clan Keith.[1] It is a Z-plan tower house dating from the sixteenth century.[12]
Ackergill Tower, a couple of miles north of Wick, Caithness is a tower and mansion that dates from the fifteenth century.[12] It rises to five storeys and was originally held by the Cheynes but passed to the Keith Earls Marischal in about 1350.[12] The Keiths who inhabited Caithness had a long and bitter feud with the Clan Gunn.[12] In 1556 the Keiths were besieged in the castle by the Clan Sinclair before eventually selling it to them in 1612.[12] Sir Robert Keith of Benholm had also once attacked the castle during a family dispute.[12]
^Gordon, Sir Robert (1580–1656), A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland. p. 69.
^Mackay, Robert. (1829). History of the House and Clan of the Name MacKay. p.82. Quoting: Gordon, Sir Robert. (1580–1656). A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
^Miles Kerr-Peterson, 'Sir William Keith of Delny', Innes Review 67:2 (2016), pp. 148-9.
^John Bruce, Leycester Correspondence (London: Camden Society, 1844), p. 52.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstCoventry, Martin. (2008). Castles of the Clans: The Strongholds and Seats of 750 Scottish Families and Clans. pp. 297 – 300. ISBN978-1-899874-36-1.
