The quotations below were compiled by Esther
Bisset 
. A Word 2.0 version of this page is available.
"History of the Frasers of Lovat", Alexander Mackenzie, A & W Mackenzie, Inverness, 1896
In ‘History of the Frasers’ (Alexander Mackenzie) mention is made of two forts, belonging to the Crown, built on Bisset lands in the North Highlands, namely Beaufort and Lovat, which continued to belong to the Crown ‘even after the Bisset lands on which they were built had been granted to the Frasers.’
The lands ‘appear to have been held by Royal Constables from the attainder of the Bissets in 1242 to the year 1367, when Hugh Fraser does homage as laird of Lovat. The first mention of of the Fort of Lovat occurs in the reign of Alexander I, when that king, in 1120, made an expedition to the North and quelled an insurrection....and settled Constables in the Castles of Elgin, Inverness and Dingwall.’
The book goes on to say that the descendants of the Constable of Fort Lovat appointed by the king (the Gilchrists) ‘continued in Lovat till the year 1170 when John Bisset, a man of eminence at the court of William the Lion, married the King’s own daughter, and settled there under Royal authority. His second son, John, succeeded him, and married Jean Haliburton, daughter of the laird of Culbrynnie, anno 1206. Haliburton was one of a set of small proprietors who were known as the Bisset’s Barons. There is no doubt that in those days tribes of Mackays and Macraes inhabited the Clunes, Achryvaich, Aberiachan, Kilfinnan, and Urquhart, as vassals of the Bissets. The Macraes, or rather the MacRas, as they were then called, continued after the Frasers settled in the district as their vassals in the same lands which they previously occupied under the Bissets.’
Later in the same book it says that the popular opinion regarding Sir Simon Fraser’s marriage to Mary, daughter of Bisset of Lovat, and thereby laying ‘the foundation of the illustrious house of the Lords Fraser of Lovat is ‘by no means correct; for Mary Bisset, daughter of Bisset of Lovat, was married to Gregory le Grant, whose sons witnessed an agreement between John Bisset and Archibald, Bishop of Moray, on the 9th of September, 1258, about the Church of Conway (Conventh) and lands of Erchless.......Sir John Bisset, last of Lovat, had no male heirs, and only three daughters, Mary, Cecilia, and Elizabeth, who married, respectively, Mary, Sir David de Graham ‘de Loveth’, with issue - Patrick Graham; Cecilia, William Fenton of Beaufort; and Elizabeth, Sir Andrew de Boscho, ‘Dominus de Redcastle’, with issue - Maria de Boscho....’
'The Highland Clans', Moncrieffe of that Ilk, Barrie and Jenkins, London 1982
In ‘The Highland Clans’ (Moncrieffe of that Ilk), it states that one Robert Chisholm acquired estates in five counties, including Erchless and part of Strathglass in Inverness-shire, through his marriage to Margaret, daughter of Wiland of the Aird. ‘It isn’t known how she (Mary) came to inherit the Inverness-shire lands, but it was presumably through a descent from the family called du Bois or Wood who in turn had got them with an heiress of the great Scoto-Norman house of Bisset, the founders of Beauly Priory: from whom the Chisholm’s neighbours in the Aird, the Frasers of Lovat, had also inherited the wide lands on which they still live’.
Later in the same book it mentions that in ‘1246 William le Grant was lord of a Nottinghamshire manor in right of his wife, a Bisset heiress. The Bissets also held great estates in the Aird (two-thirds of which descended eventually through heiresses to the Frasers of Lovat) and also apparently in Stratherrick, where the Grants first appear in the Highlands.’
The Bissets are also mentioned in the same book in connection with the clan MacDonald: ‘Ranald was the ancestor of the great Clanranald, with its younger branch, the MacDonells of Glengarry, who all remained loyal to the line of his younger half-brother Donald as High Chief of Clan Donald. From Donald’s younger brother Iain Mor the Tanist (assassinated in 1427), who married the heiress of the Bissets of the Glens of Antrim in Ireland, sprang ‘Clan Donald South’: the MacDonalds of Islay and Kintyre, and the present McDonnell earls of Antrim.’
'The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer', Alexander Mackenzie, Constable, London, 1977 (1st ed, 1877)
Interestingly, in ‘The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer’ (first published in 1877 and written by Alexander Mackenzie, the same man who compiled ‘The History of the Frasers’) there is a mention of Redcastle (see earlier quote regarding Elizabeth’s marriage to the lord of Redcastle) again. ‘Unlike Kilcoy Castle which is situated about a mile north, Redcastle belongs to a much older period and has had a long and bloody history. Originally called Eddydor (Between the Waters) it was built by David, the brother of William the Lyon, in 1179...It belonged in 1230 to Sir John Bisset....and after a period of violence was annexed to the Crown by James II.’
People might also be interested to know that the Bissets feature in a prediction or prophecy regarding the future of the Fraser family, found in mysterious circumstances in1666 by Alexander Fraser in the church of Beauly, on a piece of antique parchment:
‘Real offspring of the Duke of Guyse,
Draw your forces to a head,
Now act the men, for otherwise
Your renown’s for ever dead
Your ruins are contrived all -
That join with Bisset for your arms.’
Apparently, rather than being of supernatural origin, it was delivered as a warning to the Frasers.
Another bit of information I found out while researching - the name Beauly, rather than being French in origin, which I had previously believed, may in fact be an Anglicisation of the old Gaelic name for the place where it is situated, namely Bealaidh-Achadh.
Queries to Esther Bisset ( )
Posted by Jim Rowe ( contact me )
Return to the Bisset Resources page