Ronald MacDonald , Capt

From "Sketch of the Military Services of Lieutenant-General Skinner and his sons, by Allan Maclean Skinner":

On page 73 of his book Allan Maclean Skinner wrote: "With Ronald MacDonald ends that generation of our family which constituted him and my venerable mother first cousins, and presented the last impression we know, in our own household affections, ot the genuine and heary friendship and hospitality, of the Highlander of the olden time, marked, as it was, in the case of both, by unwearied kindness towards relations who required it, not out of their superfluity, but out of the fruits of their self-denial. This was proved by many letters of thanks, found, after death, amongst their papers, for gifts given...................."

According to this account Captain Ronald MacDonald of the 12th Regiment, born at Glencoe on 7 July 1783, the last of his generation, was a grandson of the baby saved from the massacre at Glencoe. This comment on the massacre of Glencoe follows in the book:

"It is also said that the faithful nurse who carried from the burning ruins of Glencoe to the protection of his maternal relations, the MacDonalds of Moidart, the infant Alexander, as she passed from the flames. prayed that each succeeding Campbell of Glenlyon should marry, that no Campbell of Glenlyon should live to see his son and heir come of age, but, before that event, die a violent death; and that her imprecation has prevailed to this time .......... for no father in the line of descent from him, who treacherously destroyed Glencoe, has lived to see his eldest son come to manhood. But the progress of time threatens what the cruelty of the oppressor failed to accomplish; there is, at this day, left but one representative of the baby who escaped from the massacre of Glencoe, Major Alexander James John MacDonald (of Balla Cosnahan, Isle of Man,) Fort-Major of Edinburgh Castle, where, so turns the wheel of fortune, in 1746, in the custody of his official predecessor, the then Fort-Major, was confined for some years, a State Prisoner, the Chief of Glencoe, taken, red-handed from the fight, after the battle of Culloden. But he, whose life had been in 1693 protected, from the virulence of the Government, in the conflagration of his father's house [? the massacre was in early 1692?], was at length allowed to depart (the only one of all his comrades, captured in that fierce struggle, who escaped the scaffold), untried, unquestioned, and his land unconfiscated (as I am told) as if those in authority felt constrained to sympathise with the man who came forth, as the avenger of his father's murder, at the head of his clan; or as if the government shrunk from shedding more blood of that persecuted family, even while if disgraced its triumph by sending Hessian troops to carry fire and sword among the defenceless women and children of the glens".

The book also notes that: "on 28 July 1864 at Portobello, Edinburgh, died Captain Ronald MacDonald, formerly of 12th Regiment, son of Donald MacDonald of Glencoe and married at Kilmalie, 1 April 1775 to Florance, daughter of Donald Maclean of Kilmalouairg in Tyree and his wife Isobel, sister of Donald Campbell of Dunstaffnage Castle, He was buried August 2nd in Warriston Cemetary, between the graves of his sisters Isabella and Charlotte". [This marriage date must be incorrect, if he was born in 1783!]

And also, on page vi of the Introduction: "........ of your own generation but one remains to congratulate you on your 90th birthday, your affectionate cousin and friend Captain Ronald MacDonald of Glencoe, grandson of the baby who by the fidelity of his nurse was - alone of his race - rescued from the burning house of his slaughtered family on the occasion known as the massacre of Glencoe......"

It seems probable that all three statements refer to the same person: it is unlikely that there would be two Captain Ronald MacDonalds, both of the 12th Regiment and from Glencoe. But is is difficult to reconcile the dates.

Assuming the marriage date was 1799, not 1775 (a three digit error being even more unlikely than a two digit error), he was born in 1783, married aged 16 and died aged 81, which seems possible, though perhaps surprising for someone whose father and grandfather both married very late. But he wasn't Ann Maclean's cousin if he was married to her father's sister. Could 'cousin' have been a courtesy title for someone who was an uncle by marriage?. It seems unlikely. If we have the right person, to be a grandson of someone who was a baby in 1692 would be just about possible, if the baby Alexander married late at say 40 in 1732, and if then his son Donald, Ronald's father, was born in 1738, and married when well over 30. These dates would make him 81 in 1763 when Ann Maclean was 90, which seems quite reasonable and would meet the description of him as being of her generation.

But the most crushing difficulty is that Ann Maclean's mother Florance was born about 1744, and married John Maclean in 1766. It seems unlikely that he would have been very different in age from her, perhaps two years younger ie born in 1746. Supposing then that John's sister Florance who married Ronald was 20 years younger than him, unlikely but just possible, then she would be born in 1766, marrying in 1799 at the age of 33, a boy of 16!! But perhaps John Maclean's father married twice?

Lastly, what was a MacDonald doing marrying the daughter of a Campbell after Glencoe? But perhaps that is the easiest question to which to guess an answer.....