The Gentleman Adventurers of Fife or Fife Adventurers were a group of 11 noblemen-colonists, largely from eastern

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

, awarded rights from

King James VI James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

to colonise the

Isle of Lewis The Isle of Lewis ( gd, Eilean Leòdhais) or simply Lewis ( gd, Leòdhas, ) is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The two parts are frequently referred to as ...

in 1598.

Background

In 1597, the

MacLeod MacLeod, McLeod and Macleod ( ) which cited: are surnames in the English language. Generally, the names are considered to be Anglicised forms of the Scottish Gaelic ', meaning "son of '". One of the earliest occurrences of the surname is of Gi ...

clan chiefs were served with papers from the government stating that despite their centuries-long feudal tenure of the

, their lack of legal paperwork exposed the lands to claims from the Crown. This stemmed from an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...

requiring all

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

clan chiefs to prove legal ownership of their land. This head-over-heels legislation exposed many long-held ancestral lands to seizure. The generally title-less lands of the Highlands and islands became a target for the more document-conscious Lowlanders. Legally trained nobility were the first to take opportunity of this, creating papers for lands with which they had no historical connection.

The re-colonisation of Lewis

had the aim of beginning the "civilising" or "de-

Gaelicisation Gaelicisation, or Gaelicization, is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the ''Gaels'', a sub-branch of celticisation. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group, traditionally viewed as having spread from Irel ...

" of the islands and had much in common with the

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation (''plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the sett ...

which occurred some years later. James regarded the need for civilisation as sufficiently important to employ "slauchter, mutilation, fyre-raising, or utheris inconvenieties" if necessary. In fact, he had initially planned to murder all of the native inhabitants in order to facilitate settlement, but was persuaded to abandon this plan as impractical. Most notable were the Gentleman Adventurers. In 1598, a group of noblemen, several from east Fife, sought the approval of King James for the colonisation of the Isle of Lewis. This had at its core a concept to exploit the island's natural resources. The noblemen were

Patrick Leslie Patrick Leslie (25 September 1815 – 12 August 1881) was a Scottish settler in Australia. Leslie and his two brothers (Walter and George) were the first to settle on the Darling Downs, and he was the first person to buy land in Warwick. ...

Lindores Lindores is a small village in Fife, Scotland, in the parish of Abdie, about 2 miles south-east of Newburgh. It is situated on the north-east shore of Lindores Loch, a 44 ha freshwater loch. A possible derivation of the name ''Lindores'' is 'c ...

James Learmonth Sir James Rögnvald Learmonth (1895–1967) was a Scottish surgeon who made pioneering advances in nerve surgery.Balcomie The Crail Golfing Society is a Scottish golf club established in February 1786 in the Golf Hotel, Crail, Fife. The society is the seventh oldest golf club in the world. Its oldest course, Balcomie, was formally laid out by Old Tom Morris in 1 ...

, Sir

James Anstruther Sir James Anstruther of Anstruther (died 1606), was a Scottish landowner and courtier. He was a son of John Anstruther and Margaret Clephane, daughter of George Clephane of Carslogie. His second wife was Margaret Learmonth, daughter of James Lea ...

, Master of Household to

Anne of Denmark Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional fo ...

, James Spens of Wormieston, Sir James Sandilands of

Slamannan Slamannan ( gd, Sliabh Mhanainn) is a village in the south of the Falkirk council area in Central Scotland. It is south-west of Falkirk, east of Cumbernauld and north-east of Airdrie. Slamannan is located at the cross of the B803 and B8022 ...

, Cpt William Murray, John Forret of

Fingask Fingask Castle is a country house in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is perched above Rait, three miles (5 km) north-east of Errol, in the Braes of the Carse, on the fringes of the Sidlaw Hills. Thus it overlooks both the Carse of Gowr ...

, Sir William Stewart,

Commendator of Pittenweem The Prior of May then Prior of Pittenweem (later Commendator of Pittenweem) was the religious superior of the Benedictine monks of Isle of May Priory, which later moved to the mainland became called Pittenweem Priory. The priory was originally base ...

, Sir George Home of Wedderburn and his son David Home, and the

Duke of Lennox The title Duke of Lennox has been created several times in the peerage of Scotland, for Clan Stewart of Darnley. The dukedom, named for the district of Lennox in Dumbarton, was first created in 1581, and had formerly been the Earldom of Lenn ...

, the king's cousin. The

Parliament of Scotland The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...

granted the adventurers an "infestment" of the lands of Lewis. The Gentlemen Adventurers of Fife arrived at the

by ship from

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...

in 1599 with a private army of 600 men. A settlement of primitive houses was created on the Lewis coast near where

Stornoway Stornoway (; gd, Steòrnabhagh; sco, Stornowa) is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris in Scotland. The town's population is around 6,953, making it by far the largest town in the Outer Hebrides, as well a ...

now stands, in an area now called South Beach. The Clan Macleod were feudal lords of Lewis and the then clan chief Roderick Macleod sent his sons, Neil and Murdoch, to harass the new settlers. Murdoch, in particular, was a man of much learning, and was trained in the law, rather than being an illiterate pagan as the settlers purported. He served the settlers with legal papers stating the illegality of their actions. Failing any action Murdoch attacked the settlement and captured their ship and James Learmonth whom he detained for 6 months. Soon after Neil Macleod attacked the settlement with 200 men, killing 20 settlers, and seizing their property and livestock. A power struggle then began between the Macleod brothers and Neil agreed to surrender Murdoch to the remaining settlers in exchange for a pardon for his own crimes, in a court in Edinburgh. However, the agreement soured, and on return to Lewis he killed a further 60 settlers in anger. Although the Adventurers were forced to return to Fife, MacKenzie of Kintail a rival clan, was given free leave by the Crown to attack the island of Lewis in exchange for its land, and was pushed into hunting down Neil Macleod who was eventually captured on the island of

Berisay Bearasaigh or Bearasay (and sometimes Berisay) is an islet in outer Loch Ròg, Lewis, Scotland. During the late 16th and early 17th centuries it was used as a pirates' hideout and the remains of various buildings from that period still exist. In ...

. Neil Macleod was taken to Edinburgh by ship and put on trial. On 30 March 1613, he was charged with fire-raising, murder, theft and piracy. He was hanged at the Mercat Cross on the

Royal Mile The Royal Mile () is a succession of streets forming the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. The term was first used descriptively in W. M. Gilbert's ''Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century'' (1901), des ...

on 1 April. He was not beheaded whilst alive (a punishment reserved for noblemen) but his head was removed post mortem and was placed on a spike above the Nether Bow Port. His lands were forfeited to the Crown.

Kintrye

James VI backed another scheme in August 1598 to establish colonists on the

Kintyre Kintyre ( gd, Cinn Tìre, ) is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The peninsula stretches about , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to East and West Loch Tarbert in the north. The region immediately north ...

peninsula on the west of Scotland. The

Privy Council of Scotland The Privy Council of Scotland ( — 1 May 1708) was a body that advised the Scottish monarch. In the range of its functions the council was often more important than the Estates in the running the country. Its registers include a wide range of ...

hired

Robert Jameson Robert Jameson Robert Jameson FRS FRSE (11 July 1774 – 19 April 1854) was a Scottish naturalist and mineralogist. As Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, developing his predecessor John ...

's ship to carry the king to Kintyre. Robert Jameson was instructed to hire sailors in Ayr and borrow suitable weapons and cannon in the town. This expedition was cancelled. James VI had planned to dispossess the landholders and install a colony of settlers from Fife. The previous inhabitants of Kintyre would have had to resettle in Ireland.''HMC Salisbury Hatfield'', vol. 8 (London, 1899), pp. 322-3.

External links

Career of James Spens of Wormestoun, SPENS, JAMES [SSNE 1642].

References

{{reflist Human migration Isle of Lewis History of colonialism People from Fife 1598 in Scotland

Background

The re-colonisation of Lewis

Kintrye

See also

External links

References