Clan Mackenzie ( ) is a Scottish clan, traditionally associated with Kintail and lands in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Traditional genealogies trace the ancestors of the Mackenzie chiefs to the 12th century. However, the earliest Mackenzie chief recorded by contemporary evidence is Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail who died some time after 1471. Traditionally, during the Wars of Scottish Independence, the Mackenzies supported Robert the Bruce, but feuded with the Earls of Ross in the latter part of the 14th century. During the 15th and 16th-centuries the Mackenzies feuded with the neighboring clans of Munro and MacDonald. In the 17th century the Mackenzie chief was made Earl of Seaforth in the peerage of Scotland. During the Scottish Civil War of the 17th century the Mackenzies largely supported the Royalists. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the chief and clan of Mackenzie supported the Jacobite cause. However, during the Jacobite rising of 1745 the clan was divided with the chief, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, supporting the British-Hanoverian Government and his relative, George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, supporting the Jacobites. History Origins Traditional origins The surname Mackenzie in Scottish Gaelic is MacCoinneach which means son of the fair bright one. The Mackenzies are believed to have the same ancestry as the Matheson and Anrias clans. All three are said to be descended from Gilleoin of the Aird, a Gaelic dynast who lived in the early 12th century. Another theory is that all three are descended from the thirteenth century Kermac Macmaghan. The chiefs of the Clan Mackenzie are said to have been settled at their great stronghold on Eilean Donan by 1297. All of the earliest traditional Clan Mackenzie histories claim descent from a Fitzgerald progenitor. These histories include those by John Mackenzie of Applecross (died c.1684/5), George Mackenzie first Earl of Cromarty (died 1714) and the unpublished Letterfearn, Ardintoul and Allangrange manuscripts. It is believed that all of these histories ultimately derive from a single manuscript created by William MacQueen, Parson of Assynt in 1576, now lost. Alexander Mackenzie followed the Fitzgerald scheme for the first edition of his History of the Mackenzies in 1879, but abandoned it in his later 1894 edition based on the intervening publication of genealogies contained in MS 1467. MS 1467 was compiled 200 years before the earliest surviving Mackenzie traditional history. The Mackenzie and Matheson genealogies in MS 1467, which end c.1400, both derive