Girnigoe Castle, Gunn battles, Crowner Gunn, Gunn of Ulbster, Braehour Gunns; Sinclair Clan Gunn Supplement 18, 14.4.1903
Review
This Supplement has a story about Girnigoe Castle and a Gunn doing the honourable thing but dying... It also then has some useful early Gunn history and a nice reminder of the Braehour Gunns (my line) and their link to the Gunn Chiefs. As a supplement it provides, overall, some myth / history but little genealogy.
Key issues / Events / People / Phrasing;
· 1635 Girnigoe castle
· Countess daughter of Sir Hugh Oliphant of Oldwick castle
· Norna was 18 ‘when she married the earl “about 50”’ ... perhaps 63
· She had fallen in love at Oldwick with Sir Dudley Merton, an Englishman cast ashore by a storm, but her father wished her to be a countess.
· Her only son William was born a year after the marriage.
· Delight of the earl to scour the coasts in his war galley accompanied by this son
· When the child was five, Sir Dudley paid a secret visit ... to the countess at Girnigoe Castle
· And as she was advising him to give up his mad intention of reviving their love the earl appeared ... had Sir Dudley seized and imprisoned... countess locked in her chamber ... the key in the Earl’s belt when he continued his expeditions with their boy
· Rory Gunn, who had come with the countess, one day stole the key, released the countess and they began to flee from the castle by boat. Earl met them in his big boat and rammed them, Rory and the countess dying. Sir Dudley ‘was allowed to starve to death...’
· Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Pirate’.
· William, Lord Berriedale 1623
· Orkney
· Sir Robert Gordon’s invasion
· Gordon of Sallach 1639... Covenanters
· Lord Reay
· George Sinclair Earl of Caithness
· Lairds of Dunbeath and Mey
· John Sinclair Master of Berriedale
· Earl of Sutherland
· Gordon historians
· Ordnance Survey lore
· Gunn Mackay battle 1426
· Allan Stuart Earl of Caithness
· Achardle Harpsdale
· Angus Mackay and his son Neil Strathnaverian leaders
· Keiths supported the Gunns (!)
· James the First went to Inverness to punish Mackay who was the aggressor
· Neil to the prison on Black Rock in the Firth of Forth
· He escaped 1437, eleven years later
· He immediately made raids at Strathnaver...meeting the Gunns...near Reay market... between Torrigal burn and Sandside burn... Neil gained the day... ‘both sides suffered severely’... Sir Robert Gordon... Gunns retreated across country to Upper Dounreay ... desperate stand ...one section went down the Sandside burn...not the Reay burn... What is called New Reay is perhaps really Old Reay .... the fugitives took refuge ... at Knock Strangar... the mouth of Sandside Burn... surprised by the Mackays... only a handful escaped ‘to join the main body at Upper Dounreay’
· Possible that Coroner Gunn may have been the leader against the Mackays, but if so he was a young man... his death in the Strathmore combat taking place 27 years after ... 1464 his decease...
· Walter Stuart... Allan Stuart...the Earls of Caithness...
· Sir James Gunn of Ulbster, the Coroner’s father, may have been the clan chief on the fateful day... Neil Mackay of Bass fame died shortly after... His son Angus... sowed dissension between Keiths and Gunns... fight with great slaughter,,, on Tannach Moor near Wick, the Mackays siding with the Keiths to defeat the Gunns... ... it happened between 1436 and 1443... 1438?
· Ben Griam Fight 1586...the battle of Aldgown / Altgann... Alexander Forss, descendant of an illegitimate son of Lord Hemer, his mother was a Gunn, Harpsdale, of the Braehour family who claim to be the McHamishes...
This Supplement has a story about Girnigoe Castle and a Gunn doing the honourable thing but dying... It also then has some useful early Gunn history and a nice reminder of the Braehour Gunns (my line) and their link to the Gunn Chiefs. As a supplement it provides, overall, some myth / history but little genealogy.
Key issues / Events / People / Phrasing;
· 1635 Girnigoe castle
· Countess daughter of Sir Hugh Oliphant of Oldwick castle
· Norna was 18 ‘when she married the earl “about 50”’ ... perhaps 63
· She had fallen in love at Oldwick with Sir Dudley Merton, an Englishman cast ashore by a storm, but her father wished her to be a countess.
· Her only son William was born a year after the marriage.
· Delight of the earl to scour the coasts in his war galley accompanied by this son
· When the child was five, Sir Dudley paid a secret visit ... to the countess at Girnigoe Castle
· And as she was advising him to give up his mad intention of reviving their love the earl appeared ... had Sir Dudley seized and imprisoned... countess locked in her chamber ... the key in the Earl’s belt when he continued his expeditions with their boy
· Rory Gunn, who had come with the countess, one day stole the key, released the countess and they began to flee from the castle by boat. Earl met them in his big boat and rammed them, Rory and the countess dying. Sir Dudley ‘was allowed to starve to death...’
· Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Pirate’.
· William, Lord Berriedale 1623
· Orkney
· Sir Robert Gordon’s invasion
· Gordon of Sallach 1639... Covenanters
· Lord Reay
· George Sinclair Earl of Caithness
· Lairds of Dunbeath and Mey
· John Sinclair Master of Berriedale
· Earl of Sutherland
· Gordon historians
· Ordnance Survey lore
· Gunn Mackay battle 1426
· Allan Stuart Earl of Caithness
· Achardle Harpsdale
· Angus Mackay and his son Neil Strathnaverian leaders
· Keiths supported the Gunns (!)
· James the First went to Inverness to punish Mackay who was the aggressor
· Neil to the prison on Black Rock in the Firth of Forth
· He escaped 1437, eleven years later
· He immediately made raids at Strathnaver...meeting the Gunns...near Reay market... between Torrigal burn and Sandside burn... Neil gained the day... ‘both sides suffered severely’... Sir Robert Gordon... Gunns retreated across country to Upper Dounreay ... desperate stand ...one section went down the Sandside burn...not the Reay burn... What is called New Reay is perhaps really Old Reay .... the fugitives took refuge ... at Knock Strangar... the mouth of Sandside Burn... surprised by the Mackays... only a handful escaped ‘to join the main body at Upper Dounreay’
· Possible that Coroner Gunn may have been the leader against the Mackays, but if so he was a young man... his death in the Strathmore combat taking place 27 years after ... 1464 his decease...
· Walter Stuart... Allan Stuart...the Earls of Caithness...
· Sir James Gunn of Ulbster, the Coroner’s father, may have been the clan chief on the fateful day... Neil Mackay of Bass fame died shortly after... His son Angus... sowed dissension between Keiths and Gunns... fight with great slaughter,,, on Tannach Moor near Wick, the Mackays siding with the Keiths to defeat the Gunns... ... it happened between 1436 and 1443... 1438?
· Ben Griam Fight 1586...the battle of Aldgown / Altgann... Alexander Forss, descendant of an illegitimate son of Lord Hemer, his mother was a Gunn, Harpsdale, of the Braehour family who claim to be the McHamishes...