Ewen Cameron , Sir

From 'Sketch of the Military Services of Lieutenant General Skinner and his Sons':

"The ruler of the Camerons, Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, surnamed the Black, was in personal qualities unrivalled among the Celtic Princes. He was a gracious master, a trusty ally, a terrible enemy. His countenance and bearings were singularly noble. Some persons who had been at Versailles, and among them the shrewd and observant Simon Lord Lovat, said that there was, in person and manner, a most striking resemblance between Lewis XIV, and Lochiel, and whoever compares the portraits of the two will perceive that there really was some likeness. In stature the difference was great. Lewis, in spite of high-heeled shoes and a towering wig, hardly reached the middle size. Lochiel was tall and strongly built. In agility and skill at his weapons he had few equals, among the inhabitants of the Hills. He had repeatedly been victorious in single combat. He was a hunter of great fame. He made vigorous war on the wolves, which, down to his time, preyed on the red deer of the Grampians; and by his hand perished the last of the ferocious breed which is known to have wandered at large in our Island. Nor was Lochiel less distinguished by intellectual than by bodily vigour. He might indeed have seemed ignorant to educated and travelled Englishmen, who had studied the classics under Busby at Westminster and under Aldrich at Oxford, who had learned something about the sciences among Fellows of the Royal Society, and something about the fine arts in the galleries of Florence and Rome. But though Lochiel had very little knowledge of books, he was eminently wise in council, eloquent in debate, ready in devising expedients, and skilful in managing the minds of men. His understanding preserved him from those follies into which pride and anger frequently hurried his brother chieftains. Many, therefore, who regarded his brother chieftains as mere barbarians, mentioned him with respect. Even at the Dutch Embassy in St James's Square, he was spoken of as a man of such capacity and courage that it was not be easy to find his equal. As a patron of literature he ranks with the magnificent Dorset. If Dorset out of his own purse allowed Dryden a pension equal to the Laureateship, Lochiel is said to have bestowed on a celebrated Bard, who had been plundered by marauders, and who implored alms in a pathetic Gaelic ode, three cows and the almost incredible sum of fifteen pounds sterling. In truth, the character of this great Chief was depicted 2500 years before his birth, and depicted -- such is the power of genius -- in colours which will be fresh as many years after his death. He was the Ulysses of the Highlands. He held a large territory, peopled by a race which reverenced no Lord, no King but himself."-- See his Memoirs printed at Edinburgh, 1842, for Abbotsford Club."

Alan Ray-Jones writes, in June 2004:

The Cameron connection is too remote to pursue, but Colonel Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, 26th Chief of the Clan Cameron, died in June 2004, and I happened across his obituary in The Independent of Tuesday 15 June 2004, which included some interesting information on the clan as well as Sir Donald. Apparently he was held in huge affection throughout the West Highlands (this was in the 1960s) despite (or because of?) owning a (much reduced) estate of 90,000 acres, mostly mountains, lochs and moorland.

The article included the following passage: "The Camerons of Lochiel go back into the mists of time. Legend has it - and legend in tn this case may well be correct - that the first identifiable Cameron of Lochiel was Banquo's nephew, the son of Banquo's sister, and therefore cousin of Fleance, who makes a fleeting appearance in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Most certainly, history has it that a Cameron of Lochiel supported Robert the Bruce at Bannochburn in 1314. For centuries after that, the Camerons of Lochiel held sway in the area around Ben Nevis and Loch Lochy. Alas, in 1745 the Cameron of Lochiel, out of ill-judged loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie, having accompanied him to Derby and survived Culloden, faced punishment by the Hanoverians. However, there was a Bill of Attainder and his life was spared on payment of a huge fine. According to Sir Donald Cameron [the] family 'never recovered from the debt, until we were paid compensation by Hugh Dalton, the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, for fire on our hillsides during wartime military training, and damage to our house at Achnacarry at Spean Bridge'".