Note 252 — MEMORIAL CONCERNING THE HIGHLANDS WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER MACBEAN, A.M. MINISTER OF INVERNESS

A battle fought at Altimarlach three miles west of Wick, in 1680, between George Sinclair of Keiss, afterwards 7th Earl of Caithness and Sir John Campbell of Glenurchy, afterwards 1st Earl of Breadalbane. Sinclair’s kinsman the 6th earl, falling into debt and having no children, had disponed his titles, property and heritable jurisdictions to Sir John Campbell, the principal creditor, who married the earl’s widow in 1678, having managed the previous year to secure a patent from Charles II. as Earl of Caithness. Sinclair of Keiss resisted his claims by force, and Campbell marched an army of his own men and some royal troops to Caithness. The first advantage was with the Sinclairs, who celebrated the event with drunken revelry aggravated by finding a whisky-laden ship strategically stranded by the Campbells in Wick harbour. Next day the Sinclairs were defeated. It was on this occasion that the air ‘The Campbells are coming’ was composed by Finlay Macivor the celebrated piper of Breadalbane. (Calder, Hist. of Caithness, p. 162.) The courts found later that Keiss (grandson of the 5th earl) was entitled to the Caithness earldom; Sir John Campbell was compensated by being created Earl of Breadalbane in 1681, but with the precedency of the Caithness grant 1677.