Gairloch and the Mackenzies by Dr Karen Buchanan скачать в хорошем качестве

Gairloch and the Mackenzies by Dr Karen Buchanan

Mackenzie families have owned the lands of Gairloch since 1494 and many sites throughout the parish are associated with the history of the Mackenzies of Gairloch. Dr Karen Buchanan, Curator of Gairloch Museum, takes us on a journey around some of these sites, telling the stories of the Lairds and their families through objects in Gairloch Museum’s collection. Talk presented with thanks to Museums Galleries Scotland and The Art Fund. Dr Karen Buchanan is the curator of Gairloch Museum. We had a query during th talk about "Fighting Jack Mackenzie". Christina Byam Shaw's "Pigeon Holes of Memory: The life and times of Dr. John Mackenzie (1803-1886)" has this to say:- Also known as ‘Peppery Jack’, General John Mackenzie – orphaned at the age of six, a lieutenant at fourteen, captain at eighteen, major at thirty, lieutenant colonel at thirty-one, colonel at thirty-eight, brigadier-general at forty and major-general at fifty-five – was a hero to his men, a beloved character in his family, and renowned in his day as a Highland soldier of outstanding gallantry. Yet on 1814, when Major General John Mackenzie ‘changed his sword into a plough-share’ he had no choice in the matter: for all the distinction of his long service, he was never again employed by the army. At Tarragona in 1813 the intrepid Major-General Mackenzie was so incensed by the conduct of his superior officer, Lieut. General Sir John Murray, that he brough charges against him for incompetence and cowardice. Of Murray’s conduct at Tarragona and the criticism it aroused, Wellington wrote to Lord William Bentinck on 15 July 1813: “Sir John Murray’s misfortune will create the devil of a breeze.” In the vent, the breeze was mild: it was not until January 1815 that General Sir John Murray appeared before a court martial at Winchester on three charges; he was acquitted on all three but ordered to be admonished on the third – an admonition the Prince Regent dispensed with. One of the witnesses at the court martial was Lieut. General John Mackenzie. General Mackenzie’s active military life was over. He had been promoted lieutnant-general in 1814 and in 1837 he was made a full General, at the age of seventy-three. He was to live on for another twenty-three years, a well-known figure in the life of Inverness. He dies on 14 June 1860, aged ninety-six. The Inverness Courier reported that ‘ … A more imposing funeral procession was probably nevere witnessed in Inverness …’