Middle History

16th and 17th Centuries 

  With the beginning of the sixteenth century, the activities of Clan Chisholm reached the records, and these suggest that they were by no means lacking in practice in raiding cattle, the national pastime of the Highlands. In 1498 Wiland Chisholm of Comar and others carried off 56 oxen, 60 cows, 300 sheep, 80 swine, and 15 horses belonging to Hugh Rose of Kilravock. Within twenty years Wiland was again in trouble, for he and Alexander of Glengarry were with Sir Donald MacDonald of Lochlash when that gentleman invaded Urquhart on his way home from the Battle of Flodden. Some authorities say that Sir Donald's forces occupied Castle Urquhart for three years in spite of the efforts of the Grants to dislodge them.

   The seventeenth century saw the clans drawn into national history, and deliberately drawn in by Montrose and Dundee. But while the leaders were fighting for or against the Stuart kings, the majority of the clans were influenced in their choice of sides by their own feuds and local enamies. At the time of the Montrose campaigns of 1644-46, Alexander Chisholm of Comar was Chief. At this time, the Chisholms were closely associated by marriage with the Frasers, Mackenzies and Grants, and with the former they shared their adherence to the Roman Catholic religion. The chiefs themselves had become Protestant at the time of the Reformation, but exercised the greatest possible toleration, so that not only the majority of their clan but even some members of the immediate family remained Roman Catholics.

   In 1647, Alexander Chisholm was appointed to the committee which arranged the defence of Inverness on behalf of the Covenant Against the Royalists.

   Although Alexander did not support Montrose, it appears that he was concerned in Seaforth's unsuccessful rebellion against Cromwell in 1653, when Alexander and some Mackenzie friends took the opportunity to lay waste to the lands of Munro of Foulis, one of the most important Cromwellian supporters in the North.

   After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, Alexander followed his father as a Justice of the Peace, and in 1674 was appointed Sheriff Depute for Inverness. Once again his duties brought him up against the MacDonalds, for in 1679 he was ordered to lead a thousand men of the county to quell a disturbance created by some members of the clan, and in 1681 he was given a commission of fire and sword against them.

   Eight years later it was probably MacDonald action which decided Inverness and its Sheriff Depute not to support Viscount Dundee's campaign for James II against William of Orange.