278 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



of age were to be sent to schools in the Lowlands, to learn 

 to read, write, and spell English ; and that any of their 

 children who had not been so instructed were to be ex- 

 cluded from their inheritance. (loth) That the chiefs were 

 not to use in their houses more than a stated quantity of 

 wine, Macleod being allowed four, and Clanranald three 

 tuns ; Maclean of Duart was permitted four tuns, and the 

 remaining chiefs one tun each. Their tenants were not 

 to be allowed to buy or to drink any wine whatsoever. 

 Sureties were found by the chiefs concerned for the due 

 fulfilment of this remarkable bond, which was a sort of 

 second edition of the Statutes of Icolmkill.* 



Donald Gorm, who was prevented by illness from 

 appearing in Edinburgh, was compelled to ratify the 

 agreement ; he found the necessary caution in the month 

 of August, Clanranald being one of the sureties. He 

 named Duntulm in Trotternish as his place of residence ; 

 and the Council permitted him six gentlemen for his 

 household, and four tuns as his allowance of wine ; while 

 the number of kinsmen to be exhibited by him annually 

 was fixed at three. And thus the Council sought to 

 dragoon the lords of the Hebrides into ways of industry 

 and sobriety. 



An examination of the conditions which have been 

 enumerated reveals certain features which are of special 

 interest. The first is, that the chiefs of those days, in 

 their relations to their tenantry, and the common people 

 generally, were not the ideal landlords which they are 

 sometimes supposed to have been. At whatever period of 

 Highland history the Golden Age of the clan system may 

 have been if it ever had a Golden Age it was obviously 

 not at the beginning of the seventeenth century. That the 

 exactions by the chiefs from their tenantry were such as to 

 merit a stern rebuke from the Privy Council, hardly bears 

 out the idea of patriarchism with which Highland sentiment 

 clothes the working of the clan system ; while the necessity 



* RegofP.C.* Vol.X., pp. 773-6. 



