Hitherto Iona had received the last remains of the Lords of Duart; but
Sir John Maclean was not carried to the resting-place of his
forefathers. He was buried in the church of Raffin in Bamffshire, in the
family vault of the Gordons of Buckie. In Iona, that former "light of
the western world," are the tombs of the brave and unfortunate Macleans.
Their bones are interred in the vaults of the cathedral, which, after
coasting the barren rocks of Mull, buffeted by the waves, the traveller
beholds rising out of the sea, "giving," as it is finely expressed, "to
this desolate region an air of civilization, and recalling the
consciousness of that human society which, presenting elsewhere no
visible traces, seems to have abandoned these rocky shores to the
cormorant and the gull." On the tombs of the Highland warriors who
repose within St. Mary's Church in Iona, are sculptured ships, swords,
armorial bearings, appropriate memorials to the island lords, or, as the
Chevalier not inaptly called them, "little kings;" and,
undistinguishable from the graves of the chiefs, are the funereal
allotments of the Kings of Scotland, Iceland, and Norway.[93]
Sir John Maclean left one son and six daughters. His son Hector was born
in France, but brought to Scotland at the age of four, and placed under
the care of his kinsman, Maclean of Coll, where he remained until he was
eighteen years of age; when he repaired to Edinburgh, and in the college
made considerable progress in the usual course of studies in that
institution. After various journeys abroad, chiefly to Paris, Sir Hector
Maclean returned in 1745 to Edinburgh, intending again to lead his
clansmen to the standard of Prince Charles; but a temporary
imprisonment, occasioned by the treachery of a man in whose house he
lodged, prevented his appearance in the field. He was detained in
confinement until released as a subject of the King of France. He died
at Rome in the year 1758, in the forty-seventh year of his age. At his
death the title of Baronet devolved upon Allan of Brolas, great-grandson
of Donald, first Maclean of Brolas, and younger brother of the first
baronet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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