66216: Angus Beag Macaulay, Brenish, and his wife

A story about Angus Macaulay son of Domhnall Cam told by the Rev Macaulay;

The war was running for many years and the killings continued between Clan Macleod, Clan Mackenzie and the Morrisons; after the Mackenzies eventually obtained the Island for themselves there came a smattering of peace upon the Lewis. But the men of Uig would not submit to the Mackenzies’ authority at all, especially the man who was at their head – Donald Cam Macaulay. This was not Seaforth but another Mackenzie – Seaforth wanted peace on the Island. He had a great estate on the mainland and the chamberlain whom he had on the mainland was another nobleman called Alasdair Achilty. It was very often this class of people who were employed as chamberlains, especially on the large estates. Seaforth and Clan Macaulay had been fighting for so long that eventually he came to the decision that they would never resolve things. He took Alasdair Achilty over to meet Domhnall Cam to make a peace contract with him.

The contract which he was going to make with Donald was that everybody in Uig would get their land as they previously had had it from the Macleods, and that nobody would bother them again as long as they made peace with the Mackenzies. Along with that Achilty would give his daughter to Donald Cam’s son to marry. This was Anna.

Despite all that Alasdair did, Donald turned down all of his proposals and he said that he would never make peace with the Mackenzies. When his son Angus heard that his father had turned down everything and that he had missed out on having the daughter of a nobleman for his wife he went, without his father’s knowledge, after Alasdair down to Reef; he was going to get a ferry across to Callanish. He met with Alasdair there and made with him the contract that had been offered to his father, saying his father had got old by this point and Angus Beag was the eldest.

He made the contract with Alasdair Achilty down at Reef and the people of Uig and Clan Macaulay were given the land as they previously had it, and he got the girl to his wife. I think that was the first wedding that took place in a church on this island for a long time. The wedding had to be done correctly and respectably because she was the daughter of a nobleman. For a long time before this, weddings did not take place in churches, but they began then. She was a legal wife to Angus Beag; they were in Brenish